The Gentleman Loser
by plutoniumtangent
Summary: James Norrington's plot to murder the man who ruined his life is foiled by the sudden appearance of the woman he still loves. Now aboard the Pearl, forced to take orders from Jack Sparrow, he knows that his only chance at a new life begins by claiming the Heart of Davy Jones... but will his feelings for Elizabeth Swann wreck that plan as well? DMC AU.
1. His Own Private Purgatory

**Author's Note:**

**I would like to thank everybody who has read and reviewed! I really appreciate it, as those two things motivate me to keep writing. I always like to hear back from my readers, whether they have positive or negative things to say.**

**Continue to enjoy the story!**

* * *

When James had first heard that _he_ was going to be in Tortuga, recruiting a crew, the plan had practically formed itself.

The steps were simple enough. Arrive at the tavern. Sign on as a seaman. Meet the captain. Kill the captain.

Dear God, how wonderful that sounded. Perhaps he could finally be rid of the man who had so thoroughly trampled his life, despite fate conspiring against him these long months. Thus far it had seemed a cruel irony that he, James Norrington, a previously moral man in every way, had been faced with such hardships while his adversary, the antithesis of a moral man, dodged disaster at every turn. Whatever calamities had befallen the former commodore, they had first sailed quite harmlessly past that pirate bastard. Even the hangman's noose was no match for him, as he and that insolent blacksmith Turner had proved so theatrically the day that James's world had begun to unravel. But that was about to change.

This time, James had every intention of bypassing the hangman entirely. He wanted Jack Sparrow to die by his own hand.

The very thought of it filled him with a sort of savage glee as he swigged from a rum bottle, carefully regarding the facade of the Twelve Daggers while the massive drunken brawl that was Tortuga raged around him. He had been wallowing in this festering hellhole for two months now and had discovered that two months spent here could effect more change in a man than a lifetime spent elsewhere. He attributed it to the concentrated atmosphere, an odious bouquet of fermenting liquor, tobacco, and excrement, a caustic vapor that would burn you away into a shell of your former self. That was, after all, what he was now: nothing but a living, breathing remnant of an officer in the Royal Navy. He knew that he was a remnant because the whole man would have never supported a plan that so blatantly circumvented due process. Commodore Norrington wouldn't have dreamed of shooting a man, pirate or otherwise, in cold blood. He was, after all, servant to the law. Mister James Norrington, on the other hand, thought that a fat lot of good the law had done last time. As the wise man once said, if you wanted something done right, you did it yourself.

He emptied the rum bottle with a grimace and dropped it in the mud, leaning more heavily against the ancient wooden beam that supported the balcony of a shabby inn. Another fight had broken out on the street in front of him and as he watched, it grew with a life of its own, men and objects flying about in it like flotsam and jetsam in a waterspout. Two sailors that he didn't know crowded past, the nearest one treating him to a merciless shove that sent him tumbling gracelessly into the mud. His assailant and companion both broke into an inebriated fit of stupid laughter before being sucked into the maelstrom, immediately coming to blows with two sailors he _did_ know. His mind, dulled with alcohol, struggled momentarily to place them, and then he realized– they were from the _Pearl_. For an instant he battled with the urge to jump in and fight them himself, to unload months' worth of frustration upon their heads in the form of unfettered violence. The desperation and drunkenness into which he had fallen here in Tortuga had melded with his already-formidable combat skills to forge him into quite the capable barroom brawler. The rum he had just finished was going to his head, and he was growing more and more certain that he could easily dispatch the two members of Sparrow's crew...

"What you doin' out here all by your lonesome, love?"

He tore his eyes away from the pair of pirates to look in the direction of the voice, a saucy soprano, and found that its source, a tall, blonde, and rather busty strumpet, was standing over him, hands poised on her hips. He cast a glance from side to side, discovering that in the course of the ruckus he had been left as the sole loiterer, before stumbling to his feet to resume his post against the wooden beam. The strumpet shot him a coquettish smile, and he vaguely recalled being propositioned by her before– Giselle, he thought her name was– but that had been nearly two months ago, before he had become a remnant. For a moment he wondered if she even knew he was the same man. He doubted it.

She placed a hand on his chest and pushed him back against the beam, leaning into him. "Looks like you could use some comp'ny," she teased.

When he had first arrived on this God-forsaken island, the ladies had paid him special attention. It was easy, he supposed, to turn a profit on former Navy men who had come to sample the most illicit of wares that Tortuga offered. But he was here for a different reason, and the women after his coin had soon discovered that they could get none out of him. It wasn't that he didn't want to... He was quite sure that a lack of lust or desire was not the problem, a fact which was becoming almost painfully apparent as Giselle raked a finger along the line of his jaw. No, the fact remained that he was still paying for his sins, of which he had many, and it seemed only right that he continue alone in his misery. He still had some scrap of honor left, enough to know that penance was worthless without some degree of pain. Thus he had turned Tortuga into his own private purgatory, and in his mind it rather defeated the purpose to share it, even in an act of meaningless debauchery with a woman he didn't even know.

But damn if it wasn't getting harder to refuse.

Giselle, growing impatient, drew even closer, and he could feel her twining the strands of his ponytail around her fingers. "So what'll it be, love?" she pressed. Her nose was nearly touching his...

That was when he saw it, over her left shoulder, and was reminded that he had come here for much more important reasons. The fight had careened off down the street, leaving the thoroughfare mostly clear save for a few drunken stragglers. Across the way, a relatively sober man was making his way through the lamp and torchlight towards the doorway of the Twelve Daggers. James would have known that figure anywhere, the stocky build and scowling, mutton-chopped face: Joshamee Gibbs. As he watched Gibbs ascend the narrow stoop that led into the tavern, he contemplated in fascination that the two of them had ever served together in the Navy, let alone on the same ship. And now here he was, former captain, former commodore, little better than a pirate himself, prepared to join the crew of the _Pearl_, upon which Gibbs was first mate. The irony in that was almost enough to make him laugh.

He roughly pushed Giselle aside and strode unsteadily towards the entrance, listening as the harlot hurled curses at his turned back. Her voice was lost in the din of conversation and high notes of an Irish jig as he pushed open the heavy wooden door that led into the Twelve Daggers. Inside, though voices were loud and the music was louder, the atmosphere was generally more civil than that of the street. Of course there were still drunkards and tarts about, but no fight was raging, and most of the patrons were enjoying themselves in a practically polite manner by Tortuga's standards. He watched the broad shoulders of Gibbs push through the throng before the man seated himself alone at a table under the mezzanine, quill, inkwell, and parchment in front of him.

James took up a spot next to the wall that afforded him an open view of the room, watching as Tortuga's finest began to line up in front of the first mate to sign the roster. Had he been sober, he might have supposed it odd that the _Pearl_ was taking on such an infirm lot, but instead that thought never crossed him as he scanned through the crowd, a single purpose in mind. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for.

In the corner behind Gibbs, half-hidden behind a collection of palm leaves, sat Captain Jack Sparrow, reclining with his boots propped on a table while he furiously shook his compass as though it were a tambourine. No wonder it was broken.

James felt something inside him coil with hatred. It would have been so easy to simply walk across the room and shoot the man. Too easy, in fact. It would have been over in an instant, no time for Sparrow to even know what had happened, and it was a very poor act of vengeance that didn't dole out some small measure of suffering. He wanted Sparrow to realize the situation, wanted him to know that James Norrington, the man whose life he had stolen, had come to repay the favor. He wanted Sparrow to try to worm his way out of it, a tactic that the pirate had used to practically legendary success countless times before. And he wanted to see Sparrow come to the catastrophic conclusion that nothing could be done: his crimes had finally caught up to him in the form of a bullet fired from a former commodore's pistol.

Captain Jack Sparrow had put on quite a show the day he had initiated the downfall of Commodore Norrington, and now James had decided that nothing less in return would suffice.

He let the rage inside him continue to build as he watched the last man in a queue of four shamble away from the table. Only then did he begin to move slowly forward, nudging aside patrons until he reached the epicenter of the tavern, and as he approached he heard Gibbs speak to Jack.

"Including those four, that gives us– four!"

Gibbs turned back round in his seat as James stopped before him. The first mate folded his hands on the table and smiled up at the next in line. "And what's your story?" he asked genially, not a flicker of recognition crossing his face. James felt another wave of ire rising in his chest. He had spent the better part of a year hunting this man and his associates through the Caribbean, across the Atlantic, to the Mediterranean, and before that had served side by side with him aboard the _Dauntless_– granted, that had been years ago– and Gibbs couldn't even be troubled to remember him? Good God, was he really that unimportant? Or had Tortuga altered him even more than he had realized?

"My story," repeated James slowly, his voice low and dangerous, "It's exactly the same as your story only one chapter behind." The smile vanished from Gibbs's face, and he pushed on. "I chased a man across the Seven Seas. The pursuit cost me my crew, my commission, and my life." The words wavered with a seething hatred, and when he finished he defiantly snatched the bottle of liquor that sat next to the roster and took a bitter swig.

Gibbs, open-mouthed, squinted at the rum-soaked vagrant before realization flooded over him. "Commodore?" he ventured in a half-whisper laced with both incredulity and shock.

The use of his title was salt on an open wound.

"No, not anymore! Weren't you _listening?_" James snapped, feeling his jaw clench. He placed a hand against the table and leaned towards Gibbs, uncurling one finger from the neck of the rum bottle to point threateningly. "I nearly had you all off Tripoli," he sneered, unable to keep the heartbreak from his voice. Memories of the _Dauntless_ breaking up in the Mediterranean swells amidst the cries of his drowning men flashed through his mind. "I would have! If not for that... hurricane..."

"Lord!" exclaimed Gibbs, "You didn't try to sail through it?"

_Of course I did, you dullard– do you think I would bloody well be here if I hadn't?_

That was his gut's immediate response, but his tongue bit it back. Instead he just peered more intently at Gibbs, eyes burning.

"So do I make your crew... or not?" he questioned simply. From the edge of his vision he saw that Sparrow had moved, and was now attempting to slip away unnoticed, palm frond in hand.

Immediately in front of him, the first mate was showing indecision, obviously reluctant to hire on a murderous former hunter of pirates. Gibbs opened his mouth to speak, but James cut him off.

"You haven't said where you're going," he stated softly, vaguely aware that Sparrow had circled around to the other side of the table and was now making for the door. He felt something inside him snap. "Somewhere _nice?_" he suddenly shouted, grabbing the underside of the table and easily overturning it. Gibbs went flying backwards in a chorus of cries from the crowd as the music screeched to a halt and James, seizing the moment, whirled around and spread his arms, rum bottle in hand.

"So am I worthy to serve under Captain Jack Sparrow?" he loudly drawled, treating the stunned patrons as an audience and scowling at them. He caught a flicker of movement and a glint of leafy green somewhere to his right and rear, and in one deft movement he pulled his pistol from within his ragged coat, reeled around, and leveled the barrel at the head of the man behind him. "Or should I just kill you now?"

Jack Sparrow stared back through palm fronds, from around the edge of a heavy wooden beam.

The savage glee from earlier hit James again as he held a bead on the pirate, who leaned first to one side of the beam and then back again. After a moment a forced smiled crossed Sparrow's face and James knew that he was preparing to talk his way out of death.

"You're hired!" exclaimed Jack merrily, raising the palm leaf like a scepter as though his proclamation had mended all wounds.

James wanted to laugh, but instead he forced it back, his features twisting into a mirthless smirk. "Sorry," he began, finger tightening on the trigger, "Old habits and all that..."

He would have fired right then and there if he hadn't seen her. There, just behind Jack, was Elizabeth. Her hair was short and tucked under a tricorne cap, and her attire was that of a man's, but he would have known her face anywhere. How could he forget it? But it couldn't be... could it? No, it simply couldn't. Bloody hell, if this was the rum, then he needed to drink none at all, or much, much more...

He hesitated.

It was just for an instant, but in that instant he heard a cry of "Easy sir!" and felt his right arm seized, pushed towards the ceiling, as his other shoulder was grabbed from behind. He fought back against his two assailants and then he heard the gunshot, felt the recoil of the pistol in his hand.

Chaos erupted in the Twelve Daggers. The band began to play even louder and faster than before, the jaunty music setting the pace for the punches starting to be thrown. A man rushed forward and James kicked him backwards, watching as Gibbs scurried up from the floor and darted after Jack. The two of them disappeared into the crowd and James started to follow, putting away his now-useless pistol, but a pair of louts stood in his path with their swords drawn. In an instant his own cutlass was in hand and he crossed their blades with the intention of fighting through them, but another swordsman had appeared and he was forced to back against one of the thick wooden beams to avoid an attack from the rear. The entirety of the brawl was beginning to form a circle around him, threatening to press in on all sides.

Suddenly a boyish figure darted out of the crowd and stopped behind him, drawing a blade and fighting back to back with him. The adrenaline of the battle had momentarily driven Sparrow from his mind and he drove on furiously at the men trying to get at him, every so often taking a swig from the bottle in his hand. Even as a staggering drunk he was a better swordsman than this whole lot combined, he thought morosely as an errant blow shattered the bottle. He sent the offender flying back into a table before, unperturbed, stumbling backwards and relieving a fellow drunkard of another canteen of rum. Gratefully he gulped at it, the alcohol burning pleasantly on its way down, as he pressed his back to the beam, brandishing his cutlass at another wave of attackers who, seeing the two unconscious men at their feet, were not so ready to rush forward.

"Come on, then! Who wants some?" he taunted, yelling at the top of his lungs to make himself heard over the tumult that still raged, "Form an orderly line and I'll have you all one by one!" They didn't move, and he went on, "Come on! Who's first?"

He was vaguely aware of movement behind him and he began to turn, but before he knew it the bottle in his left hand was wrenched away, and he heard glass breaking. It sounded very, very close.

And in that instant, the Twelve Daggers faded to black.


	2. A Former Lady and a Former Gentleman

Elizabeth watched as the rowdy crowd cheerfully tossed an unconscious James Norrington into the mud with the pigs, and for an instant she almost regretted smashing the bottle over his head. But her goal had been to prevent something much worse from happening, and she supposed she had at least succeeded in doing that. She had seen James fight before, and the only man she knew to be better with a sword was her own William Turner. Had the brawlers of the Twelve Daggers continued to provoke him, they most likely would have ended up dead, and she had no desire to see her old friend branded a murderer in the lawless streets of Tortuga.

As the drunken patrons shuffled past her to reenter the tavern, she looked down at the man left alone, sprawled on the ground, and some part of her was suddenly filled with nearly unbearable sadness. She remembered him so clearly from a year ago, the last day she had seen him. He had smiled sorrowfully at her as she stood beside Will atop the fort in Port Royal, and, in his own way, had told the blacksmith to care for her. He had wished them both the best of luck before turning and walking away. James had always been like that, a quiet, stern, but kind gentleman, even in defeat.

The next day he had boarded the _Dauntless_ and set sail in pursuit of Jack Sparrow. News had eventually come that the ship had been lost in a storm off Tripoli, but the only word she had received of James himself was a letter in his own hand sent from the British colony on Minorca. It had arrived over four months ago, stating that he had resigned his commission, and that had been all. Her father had thought it a shame, given James's rather brilliant naval career, but the news had been pushed aside and nearly forgotten in the excitement of planning the wedding. In truth, Elizabeth had thought very little about James Norrington until Lord Cutler Beckett had arrived with a warrant for his arrest. But even then, she had been much more concerned about the other two warrants.

Tortuga was quite possibly the last place she had expected to find him. In her mind he was still in the Mediterranean, because it seemed almost impossible that he would return to the Caribbean without first visiting Port Royal, and he had never once visited Port Royal. It made seeing him in the Twelve Daggers all the more shocking, especially given his condition. The man she remembered, who had considered it his duty to serve as an avatar of justice and to set an example for others, had never been one to indulge in drink or petty violence. Yet here he was, passed out in the dirt and living the life of a vagrant sot who possessed a notably less-than-sterling personality. She didn't know what troubles had befallen him in the months since he had penned that letter, but she did know that she couldn't simply leave him here. She had known him since she was a girl, and he had always shown her nothing but courtesy and respect. It was the least she could do to repay his kindness. And perhaps, buried somewhere within her, she knew that she had played no small role in the chain of events that had led to his presumably disastrous voyage. Maybe this was fate giving her a chance to atone for that.

As he began to stir, she slowly approached him before dropping to one knee beside him. She gently took hold of his shoulder and grabbed the fabric of his ragged uniform, struggling to lift him out of the puddle in which he was lying, face down, before he drowned.

"James Norrington," she said softly, sadness in her voice as she managed to roll him over onto his side. He blinked blankly up at her, and she sighed. "What has the world done to you?"

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, his head was throbbing to a staccato of pain and his mouth was half-filled with a watery mixture of sludge and filth. Instinctively he tried to spit, attempting to push himself up only to find that his limbs were made of lead. Instead he only managed to feebly squelch in mud. He gave up, opting to stay where he was in relative oblivion until his strength returned. His senses were still benumbed, and he could vaguely tell that he was somewhere wet, quiet, and dimly lit. It all seemed very familiar, and he thought he might have been here before.

The sudden hand on his shoulder felt like it was gripping him through layers and layers of cloth, the sensation dull and distant, but as his consciousness slowly returned the touch became more tangible. He was trying to move again when something roughly took hold of his coat and began to pull. Somewhere, very far away, a voice said his name.

The thing holding his coat lifted him halfway off the ground and he scrambled to prop himself up with an arm before he looked up. And all he could do was gape, because what he saw was Elizabeth. And something tore at him inside, because he immediately knew that it wasn't real. It was just another dream he had found at the bottom of a bottle.

"What has the world done to you?" she asked, and her voice sounded just as devastatingly sweet as he remembered it. Suddenly she was looking at him in the most heartbreaking way possible, and awareness struck him like a lightning bolt.

"Elizabeth?" he whispered in disbelief, finding his strength and rolling onto his back. She smiled sadly at him and stood up, offering him a hand that he took to haul himself to his feet. "Good God, what on earth are you doing here?" The words had hardly left his lips when another wave of pain crashed through his head and he swayed, stumbling to the nearest wall and leaning heavily against it, nearly doubling over. Elizabeth practically ran after him as though she expected him to drop dead at any moment, concern plainly written on her face. The sensation passed quickly enough and he straightened up, spitting some of the dirt grit from his mouth, but he could still feel the bile threatening to rise in his throat.

"I could very well ask you the same thing!" she exclaimed, obviously no longer finding him to be in danger of keeling over.

He struggled for a moment with the question before frowning at her. "Didn't you receive my letter?"

She stared back. "James, I hardly think that a letter telling me nothing save that you had left the Navy is much of an explanation for finding you _here_," she snapped.

Only then did it occur to him that she had no concept of why he had resigned his post. He hadn't included the details when he had written to her, unable to bear putting the loss of his ship and crew into words, assuming that news of his failure and disgrace would quickly find its way to Port Royal. Apparently he had been wrong.

As he dragged the tattered sleeve of his uniform across his face, he felt a wry smile tug at his lips.

"I trust you're aware of what became of the _Dauntless_?" he asked, pushing himself away from the wall to look down at her. She nodded, but her expression betrayed that she didn't understand the connection.

"We heard that it was caught in a storm and lost. Father and I could scarcely believe it. We were worried that you had-" She bit her lip, glancing at the ground before going on, "We were so relieved when you wrote to us. At least then we knew you were alive." She looked at him earnestly, reaching forward to gently touch his arm, "Thank God you survived it, James."

But James was fairly certain that God had had nothing to do with it. If there was any mercy or justice in this life, he would have died that day. Instead he had ended up here to pay his dues.

It had been over half a year since he had spoken to anyone about his resignation or the motivation behind it, not on the hellish four-month voyage from Minorca, and certainly not here. But now he felt compelled to tell Elizabeth everything. Perhaps then she would have some inkling of what she had put him through.

Because it was, at least to some degree, her fault. He knew very well that every decision had been his to make, but behind every decision had been her manipulation. In his heart he had always known their relationship to be a lie, even when she had begged him to go after Turner, invoking the phrase "as a wedding gift." Of course she had used him, and he had known it, but he had so desperately wanted her to love him. In the end she had chosen the blacksmith, and he had still made sacrifices for her. Because of her and Turner's camaraderie with Sparrow, he had delayed pursuit of the _Pearl_ for a day, and now his ship was at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea along with over half of his crew. Had he only set sail the instant the _Pearl_ had headed for open water, the pirates would have never made it to Tripoli. They would have never even left the Caribbean.

And even after all of the failure and suffering at her expense, he still was in love with Elizabeth Swann.

Perhaps that was his greatest sin of all.

The familiar, volatile mixture of self-loathing and rage began to stir within him. Now that the initial shock of encountering his former fiancé in the streets of Tortuga had worn off, he had come to realize that if he was here, speaking with her, then Jack Sparrow was elsewhere and very much alive. He thought back to the moment he had pointed his pistol, finger on the trigger, ready to fire... and he had seen _her_. He had thought it a hallucination, but now he knew otherwise. This knowledge, combined with the liquor, the pain, and the flood of emotion that Elizabeth had brought with her, did nothing to improve his spirits.

Was she to ruin _everything_ he set his mind to?

_Thank God you survived it, James._

The words echoed in his aching mind as he pulled away from her touch and took a few unsteady steps back, a savage scowl crossing his face. "Oh yes," he mockingly started, knowing that once he ventured down this path of conversation there was no going back. He dramatically threw out his arms to the omnipresent filth that was Tortuga, wheeling around to address the empty alley. "Thank God that I lived to see my ship destroyed, my crew dead, and my commission lost, so that I could come to live on this wonderful island!" When he turned back to face Elizabeth again, she said nothing, but her eyes whispered pity.

In an instant he closed the distance between them and she very nearly backed away when he stopped only inches away from her. He saw the pity usurped by a flicker of fear, and a sensation of bitter triumph resounded somewhere within him. Maybe now she understood that he was not the man she had once known.

"You wanted to know why I'm here?" he asked quietly, contempt in his voice, "Because I am singlehandedly responsible for the sinking of one of the premiere warships of His Majesty's Royal Navy."

To Elizabeth's credit, she looked genuinely confused, and he almost laughed.

"What, did you think it was just bad luck that the _Dauntless_ ended up at the bottom of the ocean?" he scoffed. The words were coming faster and harder, and he could feel his pitch start to rise as it had when he had spoken with Gibbs. "We were hardly a day behind the _Pearl_ when that bloody hurricane hit. Sparrow would have already come and gone by the time we made Tripoli if we waited it out. So do you know what I did? I gave the order to sail into it." He paused for effect. "I sent the most renowned ship in the Caribbean into a hurricane. I even ignored the advice of three of my officers, because who could _possibly_ know better than the youngest commodore in the fleet?" The words dripped with sarcasm, and his scowl deepened. "There were seven hundred and thirty four men aboard the _Dauntless_. Do you know how many they pulled from the water?" he prodded, eyes burning with sorrow, "Two hundred and eight."

Never, as long as he lived, would he forget those figures. They were forever branded in his memory, along with their difference.

"By the time I was well enough to face the Admiralty, I already knew I was finished. The only reason I chose to resign my commission was so that they wouldn't have the satisfaction of stripping it from me."

He turned as though to stumble off down the street, but stopped after a few yards to turn back towards her.

"So, have I answered your question thoroughly enough, Miss Swann," he drawled, and he saw her flinch at the use of her proper name, "Or shall I tell you how I hear the dying screams of my crew at night, unless I am so staggeringly drunk that I simply lose consciousness?"

The blood in his head was pounding now, exacerbating the pain and the nausea, and he started out of the alley again, this time with every intention of leaving.

"I've come after Will," blurted Elizabeth suddenly, and he rounded on her.

"What, has he run off?" he shot back. Hot indignance flushed her face at the implication, but she swallowed whatever insult she had been about to hurl as she walked up beside him.

"He came here to look for Jack," she explained, sounding almost desperate, "Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company wants Jack's compass and he's sent Will to find it."

"His _broken _compass?" he interjected, but she ignored him.

"Beckett was going to arrest us both for helping Jack escape. He's offered us a full pardon if Will brings back the compass."

"And you're here because you didn't trust your dearly beloved to rescue you?"

He had never thought himself a cruel person, but watching her anger flare with every remark was giving him an undeniable level of pleasure.

"I'm here because I wasn't about to sit by and do nothing while the man I love-" (she stressed the words) "- risked his life for me!" She met his eyes, jaw set. "I won't let him return to Port Royal without that compass," she finished, her voice hard and cold with determination.

"And how do you intend to persuade the good Captain Sparrow to cooperate?" he asked sarcastically, swaying as the sick feeling grew in the pit of his stomach. He lurched to the wall and leaned his back against it, slowly allowing himself to slide down until he was sitting in the muddy street. Somehow it felt much better here.

Elizabeth frowned at him for a moment before resignedly lowering herself beside him and crossing her legs.

"Beckett's offering Jack Letters of Marque signed by the King. Unchallenged pardon and commission as a privateer for the East India Trading Company."

He turned his head to stare at her with furrowed brows. Why was the Company prepared to employ one of the Caribbean's most notorious pirates in exchange for a compass that didn't point north? He intended to find out.

Perhaps Sparrow was worth more to him alive after all.

"I doubt he'll consider that to be much of an improvement over a prison cell," he replied, and a wry smirk crossed his face, "Though certainly more agreeable than the hangman's noose."

Elizabeth smiled at him weakly before lowering her head to stare at her knees, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. The commodore she had left behind a year ago would have shown concern at this and asked politely what the matter was, but the man sitting beside her now simply closed his eyes and rested his head against the cool stone of the wall, trying to will away the pain in his temple while ruminating on ways to rebuild his life. If the compass was truly all that Beckett cared about, he imagined it would make little difference who handed it over, whether it was Turner or a disgraced former officer of the Royal Navy.

"James," she started quietly, her voice cutting dreamlike through the haze of his thoughts, "Beckett's issued a warrant for you as well."

This time he did snort in laughter, because the situation was so wonderfully absurd. Despite the ship he had sunk, the crew he had drowned, and the men he had probably killed in this Tortugan hell, he faced execution for giving Jack Sparrow one day's head start. It seemed he would be paying for that mistake until the end of time.

"Come with me."

Of all the things he had imagined her to say next, that had not been one of them. His eyes flew open and he turned to stare, only to find her already watching him, silently pleading.

"James, come with us back to Port Royal when we take the compass to Beckett. We can bargain with him to have the charges against you dropped," she explained, and the way she was looking at him made his heart ache for something he could never have, "If you stay here and they find you you'll be hanged."

He might have told her that death would be a welcome change, that he deserved it, that he had even, in his darkest of hours, contemplated ending his own life. But instead he said nothing, because if he hadn't already decided to join the crew of the _Pearl_, her words would have convinced him.

And so the two of them, a former lady and a former gentlemen, each shaped by the deeds of Jack Sparrow into the person they were now, sat beside one another in silence, staring out into the smoky, torchlit night and listening to the drifting notes of a sea shanty amidst the shouts of another fight.

When he finally felt her move next to him and she stood up, offering him a hand, he took it without thinking twice.


	3. Out of Purgatory

**Author's Note:**

**This chapter is more or less a written version of a scene from the movie, which I felt necessary to include because it resulted in an overall better flow for the story and also contained plot-sensitive dialogue.**

**Because of this, I will post the next chapter very shortly.**

**As usual, reviews are always appreciated!**

* * *

Her first journey into Tortuga was not going at all how she had anticipated.

She hadn't expected to find Will here, and would have considered it to be incredibly good luck if she had, but she had thought that at least one soul on this bloody island could provide a scrap of information as to his whereabouts. Instead, her inquiries had yielded nothing, and that was not at all comforting. When she had finally discovered that the _Pearl_ had made port, she hoped to get answers from Jack, but he had practically vanished in the wake of the ruckus in the Twelve Daggers and was probably in the process of leaving Tortuga as quickly as possible. And in the midst of all of this was James Norrington, who was the absolute last person she had thought to include in her plans.

He still seemed vaguely unreal, plodding behind her as she briskly walked towards the docks. It was difficult to reconcile the man in her memory with the drunkard she had pulled from the mud with the pigs, and in her heart she knew that she didn't _want_ to reconcile it. She wanted to continue imagining that he had remained in the Mediterranean or had returned home to England, and was living in relative peace and comfort, supported by the wealth of his family despite whatever fall from grace he may have suffered. It was a much more agreeable fantasy than the truth, which was that he was a broken and dissolute man, and that she was partly responsible for his fate.

They stepped onto the wharf, the distinctive black sails of the _Pearl_ visible even against the night sky, and she heard him retch behind her. She didn't stop, trying to ignore him, but something said over a year ago surfaced in her mind. "Rum is a vile drink," she had claimed, "that turns even the most respectable men into complete scoundrels." Of course at the time the words had been meant for Jack Sparrow, but somehow they rang even truer in reference to James.

As if springing from her thoughts, Sparrow himself came into view amidst the bustle of his crew, his swaggering walk unmistakable beside the stockier figure of Gibbs. Elizabeth lengthened her stride, making a beeline for the pair.

"Captain Sparrow," she called out, and he cast a glance over his shoulder.

"Come to join me crew, lad?" he asked, still heading for the gangplank, "Welcome aboard."

She felt her jaw clench in frustration. Her disguise was intended to be convincing, but she thought that Jack of all people would have recognized her.

"I'm here to find the man I love," she replied, hoping to catch his attention.

It worked.

He stopped dead in his tracks while Gibbs turned to stare at her, gaping.

"I'm deeply flattered, son," he began in a strained voice as he furiously motioned at his first mate, "But my first and only love is the sea..."

Somewhere close by, James retched again.

"Meaning William Turner, Captain Sparrow," she explained, putting forth no effort to hide her annoyance.

Jack whirled around, eyes wide and brows furrowed. "Elizabeth?" he whispered huskily, before turning to speak covertly to an incredulous Gibbs, "Hide the rum."

Gibbs clutched at the bottle in his hand and hurried away before Jack faced her again.

"You know these clothes do not flatter you at all. It should be a dress, or nothing. I happen to have no dress in my cabin." He grinned, looking thoroughly pleased with himself, but she had no time for his dramatic flair.

"Jack," she started impatiently, glancing down at the gnarled dock as she fought to keep the worry from her face, "I know Will came to find you. Where is he?"

Sparrow sighed, stepping towards her. "Darling, I am truly unhappy to have to tell you this, but... through an unfortunate and _entirely_ unforeseeable series of circumstances that have nothing whatsoever to do with me... poor Will has been press-ganged into Davy Jones's crew." He flinched as he finished, his words continuing to process slowly in her mind.

"Davy Jones?" she said in disbelief, staring at him skeptically. He couldn't mean _the_ Davy Jones... That Davy Jones was just a myth. Of course, cursed Aztec gold and skeletal pirates were also myths.

Jack grimaced and nodded emphatically, but was interrupted by the sound of vomiting, and both he and Elizabeth turned quickly towards the former commodore.

"Oh, please," began James disdainfully, pulling away from the edge of the wharf and spitting, his breathing ragged, "The captain of the _Flying Dutchman_?" Despite being caked in dried mud, he looked even paler than he had upon leaving the alley.

Jack frowned at him. "You look bloody awful. What are you doing here?"

James glared back sourly. "You _hired_ me," he retorted, leaning heavily against a collection of wooden barrels, "I can't help it if your standards are lax."

"You _smell_ funny."

"Jack!" she snapped, and both the captain and former commodore looked at her. Her patience had begun to wear thin hours ago and now she had none left to suffer their petulant bickering. "All I want is to find Will."

"I know," he muttered, looking sadly at the ground, though the sentiment wasn't exactly convincing. And then he paused before meeting her eyes again, and she saw it: Jack Sparrow had a plan. Whether or not it was a truly horrible plan... that remained to be seen.

"Are you certain?" he pressed, cocking his head to one side, "Is that what you _really_ want most?"

For an instant she felt anger flush her face. After all the three of them had been through, Jack certainly knew better than to imply that she wasn't dedicated to Will. She was here, wasn't she? She had escaped Port Royal, threatened the commander of the East India Trading Company at gunpoint, stolen government property, stowed away, and come to– of all places– Tortuga. If that wasn't proof enough of her devotion, she didn't know what was. But even she couldn't deny that enough had happened in the past two days to wreak havoc on her emotions– the arrest and departure of her fiancé, the holding of her father, and the reappearance of James– so that she could barely tell what she truly wanted. Perhaps Jack had been right to ask.

"Of course," she replied after a pause.

"Because I would think," started Sparrow, placing a hand on her shoulder as they walked towards the _Pearl_, "That you would want to find a way to _save_ Will the most."

She squinted at him, hardly convinced. "And you would have a way of doing that?"

"Well, there is a chest..."

"Oh dear," groaned a voice to her left. It was James, quite effectively playing the cynic.

Jack ignored him. "A chest of unknown size and origin," he went on while two of the crew, whom she recognized as Pintel and Ragetti, pushed past with a crate of bottles.

"What contains the still-beatin' heart of Davy Jones," said Pintel, as though he were discussing the weather. Ragetti leaned towards her as he shuffled by and made a thumping sound, drawing an invisible heart from inside his coat.

Elizabeth opened her mouth to contest the possibility of such a thing, but Jack interrupted.

"And whoever possesses that chest possesses the leverage to command Jones to do whatever he or she wants, including... saving brave William from his grim fate."

By now, James had stumbled across the wharf until his tall, lean frame was looming over both her and Jack, and he looked severely unimpressed with what the captain had to say.

"You don't actually _believe _him, do you?" he asked, waving a hand at Jack and frowning down at Elizabeth as he swayed from side to side.

She thought for a moment. After her experiences a year ago on the Isla de Muerta, she was much more inclined to subscribe to the impossible. Additionally, she had very little to lose. Returning to Port Royal empty handed would only end in the noose for her and a life of servitude aboard Davy Jones's ship for Will. Even if Jack were lying, she had a better chance of discovering what had really happened to her fiancé if she boarded the _Pearl_, and she had absolutely no desire to remain in Tortuga. Therefore the choice was obvious, and she felt the familiar thrill of adventure stir within her. A small smile tugged at her lips.

"How do we find it?"

"With this," replied Sparrow, fumbling with his belt before producing a small wooden box, "My compass–" He popped open the box to flash the dial, "Is unique."

"'Unique' here having the meaning of _broken_," James insisted, still frowning.

"True enough," began Jack, and the former commodore sighed impatiently before wandering back towards the side of the wharf, "This compass does not point north."

Again there was the sound of retching.

Elizabeth waited expectantly, but Jack said nothing else. She raised her brows before prompting him. "Where does it point?"

There was a beat and Jack smiled back as if he were preparing to reveal something earth-shattering.

"It points to the thing you want most in this world," he said slowly, letting the words take hold of her.

She wanted to believe them more than anything.

But Jack Sparrow had said them.

"Oh Jack," she whispered, biting her lip, "Are you telling the truth?"

"Every word, love." It might have been the most sincere he had ever sounded. "And what you want most in this world," he continued, taking her hands and gently cupping them around the compass, "Is to find the chest of Davy Jones, is it not?"

"To save Will," she quickly added, trying to convince herself that she wasn't playing into whatever scheme the pirate had concocted. It wasn't particularly working, but she had come too far to turn back. If she walked away now, her curiosity would fester until it killed her.

"By finding the chest of Davy Jones," reiterated Jack, smiling that unfairly charismatic smile as he popped open the lid of the compass and backed away.

She stared at the dial as it swung back and forth, and she was ready to curse Jack Sparrow for being a liar when suddenly...

It stopped.

The dial stopped dead and held steady.

She didn't even hear Jack when he shouted to Gibbs that they had their heading, because she could only wonder which was the more surprising: that this fantastic compass driven by the heart's desire actually existed, or that Jack Sparrow had told the truth.


	4. Into Hell

**Author's Note:**

**So, rather long chapter this time. But we do get some insight into the extent of James's level of responsibility for the sinking of the _Dauntless_.**

**It might be a while before I update again. College has intervened.**

**Favorites/follows are greatly appreciated, as well as reviews! Reviews keep me motivated to continue writing.**

* * *

The wind was picking up in the rigging when he lifted the spyglass to the horizon and watched as black sails dipped below the waves.

"Damn," he hissed under his breath, not caring if swearing was the gentlemanly thing to do or not. Sparrow was making for Tripoli. Of _course_ he was making for Tripoli. There was no better refuge for pirates in these waters, making this passage unpopular even with the Royal Navy. The _Dauntless_ herself had narrowly avoided two Barbary corsairs in as many days.

He stepped away from the railing and collapsed the spyglass, looking up. Miles off of the starboard bow, to the south, dark clouds were massing and the air was graying with the promise of rain. Another gust of wind blew across the deck, nearly taking his hat with it, and he turned towards the strip of open, calm sky straight ahead in the east.

This was the closest they had been to the _Pearl _in weeks. Of course, she was a smaller and faster ship, but he, the youngest commodore the fleet had ever known, had not earned a reputation as the scourge of piracy in the Caribbean because he lacked intuition. He had anticipated the _Pearl_'s movements across the length of the Atlantic and then through Gibraltar, always finding some tactical advantage to exploit when they fell behind, poring over every map and chart in his office to ensure that they profited from any obscure geographic anomaly. He had pushed his ship hard and his crew harder, ignoring the mounting whispers that he had exceeded his orders by continuing the pursuit this far east. But he was bound by the law, and by the law it was his duty to rid the seas of the most notorious pirate ship to sail the Spanish Main. And now he had a real chance at doing just that.

Over the past five months, he had come to know the mind of his adversary. The longer he played this game of cat and mouse with Sparrow, the easier it became to predict what the pirate would do, because, even as erratic as Sparrow was, he was not without patterns. Specifically, he never heedlessly risked the life of his beloved _Pearl_. He treated that ship like a blood relative, and wouldn't have agreed to put her in harm's way unless it were absolutely necessary.

For example, he wouldn't plunge headlong into a tropical storm off the coast of Tripoli.

Armed with this knowledge, Commodore James Norrington made a decision.

He turned around towards the ship's wheel and crossed the deck to where Lieutenant Theodore Groves stood beside Master Darby. "Mister Allam," he began, handing his lieutenant the spyglass as he addressed the helmsman, "Set a course southeast by east."

Allam, both hands on the wheel, looked back in confusion before glancing from side to side, as if waiting for an outcry of protest from the other officers. None came.

"Aye sir," he replied after an awkward pause, "Sou'east by east." He swung the wheel right.

Norrington clasped his hands behind his back and watched as the bowsprit aimed for the black sky, fully aware that Groves and Darby were staring at him as if he had gone mad.

"But, sir," ventured Groves finally, once it became obvious that his captain had no intention of rescinding the order, "The _Pearl_ is continuing her easterly route..."

"You believe Sparrow intends to make port in Tripoli?" Darby asked, his deep, gruff voice cutting like a knife through the hesitant atmosphere.

"Indeed," replied Norrington dryly, "A ship the size of the _Pearl_ will need to refit and resupply after so lengthy a time at sea."

This was the one inherent advantage that they possessed over their prey: as a first-rate ship of the line, the _Dauntless_ was capable of carrying an enormous payload, allowing her to stay in open water for much longer periods of time without fear of expending provisions, a fact that had proved to be useful on more than one occasion.

"And you hope to intercept her before she can do so," concluded Darby.

"Assuming she stays her present course and circumvents the storm, her arrival at her destination will be delayed by at least a day. Our best opportunity in which to take her is to sail straight for the coast and situate ourselves in the waters surrounding Tripoli. There we can wait for Sparrow to make the southerly turn, bringing the _Pearl_ directly to us."

There was a thoughtful silence.

"It is a risky plan, sir," Darby said uncertainly, his brows knitting.

_Of course it is,_ thought Norrington to himself, _Do you honestly believe I achieved my status without making calculated gambles?_ He wanted to yell this at the ship's master, but instead maintained his familiar stolid facade.

"Would it not be just as effective to follow the _Pearl_ and then wait for her to leave Tripoli?" asked Groves, feeling his way through the words, choosing them carefully so as not to appear insubordinate, "We could then avoid the weather altogether and not risk weighing anchor in pirate-infested waters while we wait for the Sparrow to sail south."

"No, Lieutenant," droned Norrington with an impatient sigh, "Sparrow is not likely to delay once he makes port. He could easily be gone by the time we reach the coast." Groves seemed to ponder this. "After all, it is not our speed that has allowed us to maintain the pursuit for this long," added the commodore pointedly, looking at his two officers.

They said nothing.

He turned on his heel and walked down onto the quarterdeck before entering his office, shutting the door behind him. Though the thin glass paneling provided little soundproofing from the bustle of the rest of the ship, this place continued to be his one bastion of solitude. Despite the enormity of the _Dauntless_, he had yet to find a quieter location, unless he wished to sit beside the munitions and powder kegs in the hold. The thought was tempting.

In truth he had much preferred the _Interceptor_, with her clean lines, unholy speed, and sparse crew. She had been a lean ship, nothing of excess on her, with very little to come between a man and the sea. He had enjoyed that simplicity. His issue with the _Dauntless_, the great beast lumbering across the Mediterranean, was that there was simply quite a lot of her. She embowered more than six times as many men as had been aboard the _Interceptor _and spread them out over twice as many decks. Of course, he would be lying if he said that it wasn't exhilarating knowing that one hundred cannons and nearly eight hundred seamen were at his disposal, awaiting his orders. While he had never particularly lusted for power, that did not prevent him from appreciating it. But even so, the additional duties that accompanied his rank annoyed him. He performed them admirably, because it was in his character to excel at whatever one attempted, but he often wished that he could do away with them altogether. How nice it would be to concern himself only with the matters immediately pertaining to the sailing of his ship, cutting out the administrative details entirely...

It was at such times that he understood the allure of piracy.

He swept off his hat and wig, dropping them onto a chair as he made his way across the room, running a hand through his own unkept hair. He hadn't bothered to cut it in weeks, instead resorting to tying it back and tucking away the loose strands as best he could. He had much more pressing matters to worry about.

The decanter sat where it always sat, on the narrow wooden table against the wall with the pristine crystal snifters next to it, looking just as out of place as the rest of the office amidst the harshness of shipboard life. He picked it up and filled a glass before looking morosely at the small amount of brandy left in the bottle. His supply of liquor had been diminishing more rapidly as of late, but he didn't dare advertise the fact.

Taking a careful sip, enjoying the burn of the alcohol, he walked to his desk, folded himself into the chair behind it, and allowed the tension to ease from his muscles. The windows at the stern of the ship had been opened, allowing a breeze to stir the close air, and he watched the green waters of the Mediterranean swirl and froth in the wake of the _Dauntless_. It really was a beautiful sight, the waves glinting with the golden light of a sinking afternoon sun, but still he longed for the Caribbean. He could almost see it as he stared into the sea, the crystal clear bays and the lush palms, the strong walls of Fort Charles crowning Port Royal. He could also see Elizabeth Swann standing atop those walls, arm in arm with William Turner.

She still invaded his thoughts, no matter how hard he tried to rid himself of her. Despite his acceptance of her choice, despite the months that had passed, despite the pursuit that constantly occupied him, her memory continued to persist. Sometimes she appeared beside the blacksmith, but more often than not she was pressed into one of his fantasies of a future that might have been.

They could have built a life together.

They almost had. She had been his fiancé after all, even if only for the briefest of times. It could have worked, because he would have done anything for her. He thought she had understood that, but he had never openly expressed his true feelings and then realized too late that Elizabeth had mistaken his reserve for a lack of passion. Turner, on the other hand, wore his heart on his sleeve, and that had made all the difference.

The shadows in the room had lengthened and he was squinting at the brilliant fireball on the western horizon when the knock came, abruptly ending his reverie.

"Enter," he said, downing the last swallow of brandy in his glass and pushing himself out of the chair. Behind him he heard the familiar groan of the door on its hinge and when he turned around, his first lieutenant was standing inside his office.

"Gillette," said Norrington, smiling tiredly. He knew perfectly well why Thomas was here. "Have you come as an officer or as a friend?"

"Both, I'm afraid," replied the other as he walked the length of the room to the desk, distaste in his voice.

Norrington's smile grew wry and he emptied the contents of the decanter into both his glass and another, which he offered to his lieutenant. Gillette gratefully accepted.

"I suppose you're here to inform me of my shortcomings and failures as the commander of this vessel," Norrington said dryly, prompting an expression of embarrassment from Gillette, who glanced down at the carpeted floor.

"Lieutenant Groves did tell me of your orders," he admitted.

Norrington knew that this was the polite way to say that Groves had complained about their earlier conversation. He walked back to the windows and gazed out at the sun as it scorched the waves at the edge of the world. "And what is your opinion?"

The pause was just long enough for the commodore to know that Thomas agreed with Darby and Groves. He heard a sigh behind him, turning around to see the lieutenant staring fixedly at one of the charts spread across the desk, but not actually reading it. He was searching for words instead. When Gillette finally looked up, he met his senior officer's eyes with a frown.

"James, you know that I want as much as you to bring Sparrow to justice..." he finally said.

There was a tense silence.

"You believe we should follow the _Pearl_ to Tripoli?" asked Norrington quietly.

"That is one course of action," Gillette replied, "I simply don't think it wise to charge blindly into a storm."

"And that's exactly the mentality that Sparrow expects of us," snapped Norrington, his eyes beginning to smolder with frustration. He had thought that at least Gillette might understand. "He will anticipate us to use caution, which is why he will double his efforts to lose us between now and the time he leaves port." Annoyed, he took a draft of brandy. "It's not as though we haven't weathered storms before."

Of course they had. They had crossed the bleeding Atlantic, for God's sake. The _Dauntless_ was, by now, a proven ship.

"Master Darby and I believe it to have the look of a hurricane," insisted Gillette.

They had sailed through one of those as well, Norrington was sure, but on that occasion it had not been intentional.

For what felt like a long time he glared at his lieutenant, almost sneering. He wanted to make some sarcastic remark about how the man obviously didn't want this hellish voyage to end, how he didn't want to see the Caribbean– or his wife– ever again. But he couldn't bring himself to stoop so low as to insult an officer. Gillette would have probably taken the jibe swimmingly, but that wasn't the point. He was still a captain and commander, and he could no longer demand the respect of his subordinates if he resorted to petty digs at the first sign of a disagreement.

"Do you realize that this pursuit could end within the week?" he finally asked quietly.

"Yes, it could," Gillette answered, before adding, daringly: "But not because we achieved our goal."

Their eyes locked.

"What are you suggesting, Lieutenant?" Norrington pressed, his voice as cold and dangerous as black ice.

"What I am saying, _Commodore_," Gillette fired back, tossing away decorum, "Is that while the men would follow you to the ends of the earth, morale is hardly high. We have been at sea for weeks. We are _long_ overdue for repairs. The simple fact is that we are not in peak condition and in no state to brave a hurricane!"

But, somewhere during the argument, Norrington had become unpersuadable. He had latched onto the thought of ending this dance with the _Pearl_ and now his mind would not let it go. He wanted to see Jamaica again. He wanted to see Fort Charles again. He even wanted to see Elizabeth again. But most of all, he wanted to see Jack Sparrow standing on the gallows again. Slowly, he set down the brandy glass and placed his hands against the top of the desk. Any atmosphere of friendship between the two men had now been entirely eclipsed by their ranks.

"I want to see black sails in range of our guns within three days' time. Do I make myself clear, Lieutenant?" he questioned in a low, harsh tone.

Gillette stiffened, putting down his own drink and taking a step back. He came to attention and raised his hand to his forehead. "Sir," he said curtly, finishing the salute, before turning on his heel and briskly leaving. The door did not shut quietly after him.

When his subordinate had gone, Norrington hung his head with a sigh, staring down at the map of the African coast that was pressed beneath his palms. He could see the _Pearl_'s route so clearly on the parchment, the way it horseshoed around towards Tripoli in an arc that he intended to cut straight through. He knew that by making for the port he was asking a great deal of his crew, but if they could only see that he was trying to put an end to this goose chase... It was the first opportunity they had been given since Gibraltar to decisively finish their mission, and Lord knew if they would be given another chance soon. So he had made the hard decision, even though that decision involved a very large risk, and the _Dauntless_ and everyone aboard had become chips in his massive, calculated gamble.

If he lost, there would be hell to pay.

Later that night, when the sun had fallen into the sea, he walked alone on the deck of the ship. He stopped on the forecastle, squinting into the inky blackness ahead as the wind whipped at his hair, while the creak of canvas and rope was lost amidst the roar of the bow cutting into chop. Something hit him on the shoulder, and he looked up.

It started to rain.

* * *

When he awoke in unfamiliar surroundings, he nearly overturned the hammock, groping wildly in the dark for something solid to steady him until he finally realized that he was no longer curled up in a filthy Tortugan alleyway or sprawled on a cot in a derelict inn. He was aboard the _Pearl_. And he was now a member of her crew. That thought alone was enough to sicken any sane man, in his opinion, but hardly explained the soreness at the back of his skull or the splitting headache nesting just behind his eyes.

He concluded that he was suffering from a terrific hangover.

He didn't remember drinking quite that much, but then again, he never did. And each time when he regained consciousness and was miserable, he typically remedied the situation with another bottle of rum. However, he was fairly certain that any decent liquor on this vessel was in Sparrow's private supply and he was in no state to attempt a theft. This time, it seemed, he would have to remain miserable.

As he stared up at the nearly invisible ceiling, folded awkwardly in the hammock and sobering, he began to piece together the events that had led him here. He remembered the Twelve Daggers and his failed attempt to kill Sparrow; he remembered that this attempt had failed because of Elizabeth; and he remembered that someone had smashed a bottle over his head.

That explained the soreness, at least.

He also remembered speaking to Elizabeth in a deserted street before the speaking had turned nearly to shouting, and the thought stirred up a slurry of anger, remorse, and desire. In that one conversation he had managed to destroy every pleasant fantasy she might have had about him or his life, and he had enjoyed doing it. As he replayed the scene in his mind, he couldn't bring himself to wish that he hadn't said those things. He had wanted her to hear his story so that she could understand him, something that she had never been able to do in the past. Because in that past, that previous life where he was still Commodore Norrington and not simply James, he had bottled his emotions all too often, and in the end it had cost him. He had vowed not to make that mistake again.

Last night, he obviously hadn't. Now his regret was that he had not been gentler about it. Conversations from last night began emerge, bringing with them visions of Jack's compass, the heart of Davy Jones, and Letters of Marque officiated by the king. Fate had handed him this second chance to rebuild his life and regain what he had lost, but he feared that he had already destroyed any chance of regaining Elizabeth, as a friend or otherwise.

Good God, why did he even still care what she thought of him? He had destroyed himself once because of her. He had learned from it. Why then did he still feel the pull of that selfsame path? Was he to be forever drawn to her like a moth to the flame? He had always been in such control of his emotions, until the events a year ago had ended that other life and started his downward spiral. A fundamental change had happened then, when he had realized what he had lost because of that control. Now he knew he could never go back to having it. That trait had died with the good commodore, but Lord how he wished he had it now. Maybe then he wouldn't be so utterly affected by her presence. She was his opiate: addicting and intoxicating, but leading only to ruin.

The _Pearl_ lurched, jostling the hammocks together, and he felt the nausea from the night before suddenly rise in his throat. He stared harder at the ceiling, sucking in a sharp breath and focusing on willing away the sick feeling, but the stifling heat, the stench of sweat, and the drone of snoring crew members were doing him no favors. When the ship rocked again he rolled over, landing with a thud on all fours before unsteadily pushing himself to his feet. Blood rushed to his head and black roiled at the corners of his vision, but he grabbed a beam overhead and started slowly for the end of the berth. The stairs leading to the upper decks were just visible in the yellow light of dim lanterns, and as he headed towards them it occurred to him that he had absolutely no memory of coming down here last night. It also occurred to him that he hadn't deemed it necessary to take off his boots, or any other article of clothing. In fact, the only things that seemed to be missing were his hat, with the wig fairly well encrusted into it, and his cutlass, which he hoped was somewhere close by, because he had a feeling that he was going to be needing it sooner rather than later.

He lurched up the first set of steps to the gun deck and then practically crawled up the second set until he emerged in the open air, and the sudden chill of a cool night breeze felt more welcome to him than a woman's touch. Very deliberately, he went to the side of the _Pearl_, curled over the railing, and retched into the sea.

It helped immediately.

He spit, breathing in the scent of the brine on the wind, and was just beginning to feel human again when the voice sounded behind him.

"Well, if it isn't the good former commodore!" it said derisively.

Muttering a curse, he turned around, knowing precisely who he would find.

It was Pintel, grinning savagely and accompanied by Ragetti, who was holding his wooden eye in one hand, scraping at it absently with a knife.

"He don't look so good," commented Ragetti, regarding James with a grimace.

"Yeh he does seem a bit peaked, don't he?" Pintel seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. "Looks to me like he can't hold his liquor."

James rolled his eyes. "Oh, please," he drawled, "If you tasted the quality of the swill I've been living on for the past two months you'd be heaving it up too."

Pintel, considering this, frowned. James scowled back.

"How on earth did you two blithering idiots manage to escape the noose? Certainly not as theatrically as our dear Captain Sparrow?"

Pintel opened his mouth to reply but Ragetti cut him off.

"It was me eye," he said proudly, a stupid grin crossing his face, "I got the dog ta play fetch with me eye. So when–"

"When he went ta pick it up, he dropped the keys, see?" interrupted Pintel as he bared his yellowed teeth again in amusement.

"Oi, I'm tellin' the story!" Ragetti exclaimed, looking genuinely offended before roughly elbowing the shorter man. Pintel growled back and it looked as though they were going to brawl until they were stopped by the sound of laughter.

It was really less of a laugh than it was a snort that dissolved into cynical chuckling, but it was unmistakably coming from James, and they both turned to stare. He was looking at them, eyebrows raised in amusement, as he leaned against the side of the ship, his back to the sea and his elbows propped on the rough wood. The chuckling finally faded into a smirk and he pushed himself away from the railing.

"And I thought that nothing could no longer surprise me," he remarked wryly. Pintel and Ragetti said nothing, and he didn't intend to give them the chance to. He couldn't handle dealing with the crewmen of the _Pearl_ at this hour, and that included those on deck as well as the ones below. What he wanted was to be alone, and he knew of only one place on this God-forsaken ship where he could possibly accomplish that.

He grabbed hold of the ropes and swung onto the ratlines, the two pirates still staring, before beginning to scale them as though he had done this every day of his life. He actually hadn't been in the rigging in years, but muscle memory was a curious thing. For instance, he knew that no matter how long he went without holding a sword, the reflexes would return in an instant the next time he picked up a blade. His skills as a sailor were the same. It didn't matter that he had spent the majority of the past two months growing roots in Tortuga: he immediately felt at home with the waves somewhere beneath his feet.

He reached the underside of the top, muscles aching from disuse, before using the futtock shrouds to haul himself over the edge of the platform. It was spacious here, with enough room for a man to easily walk around, but he simply scooted across the wooden boards until he was sitting against the mast. There was a clear line of sight to the horizon, shining dimly in the moonlight. And it was quiet. Good Lord, it was quiet. The only sounds were the faint whisper of the sea against the hull and the thud of the sails. He knew, of course, that this would all change at dawn, but until then he could enjoy some small measure of solitude.

And then he would have to face the rest of the crew.

He had already steeled himself for the jeers and the insults. He was, after all, trapped aboard this floating prison with nearly a hundred criminals, all of whom he intimately hated, and all of whom felt exactly the same way about him. Who knew how long it would take before they tired of reminding him that he, James Norrington, the scourge of piracy, was now a deckhand on their ship.

For an instant he wondered why in God's name he had thought this a good idea, but then reminded himself what was at stake. Jack's compass, the so-called heart of Davy Jones... a fresh start. Because somewhere in Port Royal, perhaps sitting in his old office, were Letters of Marque offering status as a privateer. It wasn't the King's Navy, but it was better than this. All he had to do was bide his time until the opportune moment... Of course, his plan would require some significant betrayal of Jack Sparrow in the future, but that was hardly a problem. If the plan were altered to include killing Jack Sparrow, even better.

He had become a treacherous man in the past two months.

But was he heartless enough to forfeit Elizabeth to the East India Trading Company? If he claimed either the compass or the heart as a bargaining chip for the Letters, then he left Elizabeth and William nothing to trade for their lives. Their warrants would never be voided, and they would be arrested and hanged. He could try bartering with Beckett for their safety, but there were no guarantees. Beckett could just as easily have him killed as well before taking the prize for himself.

A small, unselfish part of him, one of the few fragments the commodore had left behind, began to churn. Immediately he tried to squelch it, but it continued to itch at the back of his mind. He focused on the future. He could captain his own ship again. Better yet, he would no longer be bound by the sometimes tedious regulations of the Royal Navy. This waking nightmare would end, and he would be a respectable man again. And all he had to do to achieve this was follow through with the plan he had set in motion by coming aboard. But still he could not shake the thought that while he would rise out of hell, Elizabeth would be cast into it.

He knew that somewhere below him, beneath the decks of the _Pearl_, she was sleeping. If he had wanted to, he could have gone and found her, even spoken with her. After all the months of imagining her and constructing fantasies, it didn't seem possible that she could be so terribly close. And now, after all of that time spent carefully guarding her memory, she was finally here in the flesh, and he was genuinely entertaining the idea of sending her to her execution.

Thunder rolled in the distance as a gust of wind raked the sails, and as he sat with his back to the mast, staring bleakly at the end of a charcoal world, he felt something hit his shoulder. He looked up, and it began to rain.

* * *

**Note on definitions:**

**Here we take a detour into naval terminology...**

**The 'top' of a ship is a platform built about a third of the way up the mast, where the mainmast meets the topmast. The purpose of rigging (shrouds) was to support the mast, but if the ropes were attached directly to the mast the angle of attachment would be too great and no support would be given. The solution was to put two crossbeams on the mast at various intervals, to which the shrouds were attached. The first set of these crossbeams generally had planks laid across them, creating a platform, which was called the top.**

**To access the top, ships often utilized futtock shrouds, which were small sections of rigging extending from the edges of the top and attaching to the mast below. This was to stabilize the top and allow sailors to climb from the rigging over the edge of the top.**


	5. A Manner of Luck

It was just before sunrise when Gibbs replaced Cotton at the helm. The storm, which had been little more than a cloudburst, had passed quickly enough, leaving behind the fresh scent of rain in the pre-dawn chill. Gibbs breathed in a lungful of cool air and wished that this weather would hold, but he knew that once the sun was up the Caribbean heat would begin to take over. By noon they would all be frying on the deck.

He took a swig from his flask, holding the wheel with his free hand and squinting at the pale light in the east. They would need another heading soon. Jack had insisted that they sail through the night, which, given their circumstances, was entirely reasonable. So they had cast off from Tortuga and set a course in the direction the compass had pointed when Elizabeth took hold of it, and they had kept that course. Where they were now, Gibbs was not entirely sure, but he did know they were making excellent time. And he thanked his lucky stars for that, because Jones's deadline was fast approaching. If they failed to find the heart in time, and it came down to deciding between the lives of one hundred men aboard the _Pearl_ or Jack's soul, Gibbs was afraid he knew which the captain would choose.

Out of all the morally questionable acts he had committed throughout his years of piracy, this was by far the worst. Jack had been a good friend to him on more than one occasion, and Gibbs owed him for that, but even he could see that it was no good condemning an entire crew to a life aboard the _Dutchman_ just so that Jack could save his own skin. However, the alternative was hardly pleasant.

Gibbs had heard the tales and seen the whalebone carvings of the Kraken, and he hoped he never had to see that horror in person.

Adding to these troubles was the appearance of James Norrington. At first glance, this really didn't seem to be much of a problem, save that it rubbed nerves raw amongst the crew, but Gibbs couldn't help seeing his former commanding officer as something of an albatross. It wasn't that Norrington was a bad sort. Gibbs knew him to be a decent man, even a good man, in the past, but the worst kind of luck seemed to follow him. It was, after all, Norrington who had been the first lieutenant on the _Dauntless_ nine years ago when they had plucked William Turner from the water, and that was really where the lamentable mess with the Aztec treasure had begun. Then, he had taken command of the _Interceptor_, which had later exploded in spectacular fashion. He had sailed the _Dauntless_ to the Isla de Muerta, where an entire troop of Marines had been slaughtered by Barbossa's skeleton horde. Shortly afterwards, the island itself had inexplicably fallen into the sea. And then, as the crowning achievement of his brilliant career, the commodore had sailed one of the only first-rate warships in the Royal Navy into a hurricane, where the _Dauntless_ had broken to bits and taken over half her crew with her to the deep.

Simply put, James Norrington was a Jonah, which was absolutely the last thing that the _Pearl_ needed.

And on top of all of this was Elizabeth. No matter how much Gibbs might have liked her, he still held fast to the notion that having a woman aboard was bad luck.

This meant that, in total, they had with them a former commodore whom good fortune avoided like the plague; a governor's daughter on the run from the East India Trading Company; and a captain who had been marked by the Black Spot.

The odds were rapidly stacking against them.

"Mister Gibbs!" called the familiar droll voice, and the first mate turned to see Jack swaying up the steps and onto the deck, "Is there any more speed to be coaxed from these sails?"

"I do believe the _Pearl_ is catchin' every bit of wind to be had," Gibbs replied, steadying the wheel.

Jack stuck his tongue out in disgust at the news.

"And we'll be needin' a new heading soon," added Gibbs.

Sparrow paused and suddenly grew serious, his eyes darkening. "Aye, that we will," he muttered, staring blankly at a point just over Gibbs's shoulder, and to Gibbs it was obvious what the trouble was. As inscrutable as the captain usually was, there were times when he was painfully transparent. For instance, it wasn't difficult to tell when he had no desire to face a woman. Anamaria induced the same expression.

"I imagine that Miss Elizabeth isn't bein' so cooperative on account of ye tellin' her how the boy came to be on the _Dutchman_ in the first place?" prodded Gibbs with a humorless smile.

"Insofar as Elizabeth is concerned," began Jack in conspiratorial fashion, drawing closer to his first mate, "Dear William went bravely into the entirely accidental, miserable, and otherwise quite possibly deadly situation in which he now finds himself, until such time that the aforementioned heart of Davy Jones may be used to bargain for his eternal soul. Savvy?"

"Aye," Gibbs said with a knowing smile as he nodded, "And what exactly be the plan should our three days to collect your payment run out before we make our destination?"

They both knew that it had been over forty eight hours since Jones had issued his ultimatum. They had until sundown today to either return with the souls or retrieve the heart.

"Then I shall bargain with the good captain, using my inequivocabile skills of persuasion, to allow us to turn over the souls we've collected as a payment of good faith, and then we shall be merrily on our way," concluded Jack, showing his gold teeth in a crooked grin as he clapped bejeweled hands together.

"And ye think Jones is likely to accept four souls out of a hundred?"

Jack frowned, his lip twitching in distaste. "Four? No, of course not!"

Gibbs felt a sense of dread begin inside him.

"I do believe you are forgetting to include our dear former commodore in your calculations," Sparrow corrected, before grimacing, "I suppose he does actually qualify as an acceptable sort of soul, does he not?"

The tension in Gibbs stomach released. At least Jack hadn't yet decided it was necessary to cart the crew of the _Pearl_, en masse, onto the _Dutchman_. Instead he just intended to turn over James, who, Jonah or not, Gibbs was not sure deserved such a fate. Nobody did, really. Except for perhaps that murderous tyrant Beckett... Gibbs had never had the pleasure of personally meeting the man in charge of the East India Trading Company, but he had heard Jack describe him in great detail, and that was enough.

Gibbs thought on this for a moment before speaking again.

"What if this plan of yours goes altogether pear-shaped and the heart ne'er crosses our path?" he asked, squinting sideways at the captain.

"Then we best be gettin' ourselves to land, mate," replied Jack gravely, before he turned and began to swagger towards the steps.

"And what of the boy?"

Jack halted mid-step and whirled around. "In the unfortunate and unlikely event that such regrettable circumstances should occur, I am afraid that poor William would be sentenced to a life aboard the _Flying Dutchman_, condemned to serve, as it were, so that the rest of us... might live," he explained eloquently, placing a hand over his heart and pausing in reverent silence. When he had finished, Gibbs watched as he thudded down onto the quarterdeck before disappearing into his cabin.

Through all of this, it was nothing short of a miracle that neither one of them noticed the lanky frame of James Norrington leaning just beneath the stairs, camouflaged in his shades of navy blue and dark brown, having listened to every word just said.

It was the first scrap of luck he'd had in over a year.


	6. The Hurtful Truth

It was useless trying to sleep again.

Even if there had been a decent space of time until the morning bell rang, the remnants of his hangover, the din of the snoring crew, and the newfound knowledge of Sparrow's intentions would have kept him awake. As it were, he stayed on deck, alone at the forecastle, as he watched the horizon grow bright in the east.

When the sun finally broke and the call went out to start the day, he did his best to avoid the others. He took their vicious glares and jibes in silence, biting his tongue to refrain from shooting back some sarcastic remark that might provoke a fight, but with every cut and dig they threw at him, the more his self-loathing grew. This was what his life had come to, then: he had fallen so low as to be the subject of ridicule even amongst pirates. The thought made him want to retch again. And worst of all was that he didn't even have to wonder at how drastically things had changed in the past few months, because he, sober for the first time in weeks, could clearly see the path that had led him here. In his mind, no longer dulled by alcohol, every mistake he had made was outlined with extraordinary clarity, and he knew why he had turned to the rum in the first place.

God, he needed a drink...

When a bucket of water and a filthy rag were shoved into his arms and he was ordered to swab, he didn't complain. He only scowled, dropping to his knees and beginning to scrub, but hating it nonetheless. He knew that he had been given this detail for the sole enjoyment of the rest of the crew, so that they could revel in the sight of their nemesis crawling about on the deck, but that wasn't why he detested it. Instead, it was because of the sheer banality of the thing. He needed something to occupy his mind, and such a menial task decidedly did not do that. In fact, it only left him with more time to dwell on the many things wrong with his life.

Namely, the dilemma he now faced.

He had known that Sparrow was up to something, but he hadn't expected to find himself in a position to be farmed out to Davy Jones. Of course, according to the conversation that he had overhead, he wouldn't be alone. The other four miserable souls they had picked up in Tortuga would be joining him. It made sense, of course. He had heard the tales of Jones and the _Dutchman_, of how certain unfortunates came to be indebted to the mythical captain, and it was no stretch of the imagination to see how Jack Sparrow, of all people, might have become one of these unfortunates. And it was an even smaller stretch, Jack Sparrow simply being who he was, always at the ready to worm his way out of death, to see that he would sacrifice other souls to save his own.

At the very least, it explained why Sparrow had allowed four completely inept sailors and a former Navy man anywhere near the _Pearl_. It also explained why he was in such a desperate hurry to locate the fabled heart. It would have been terribly surprising to find that he was after the artifact without some ulterior motive, only looking out of altruism to free William Turner from an unsavory fate.

The thought of the blacksmith suffering aboard the _Dutchman_ nearly put a smile on James's face, and he wondered for an instant when he had become a cruel enough man to revel in the pain of another. But it _was_ Turner... Turner who had thrown his lot in with pirates and been rewarded for it, Turner who had instigated the escape of Sparrow, Turner who had swept Elizabeth Swann off her feet. The darker side of him wished he had left the boy to drown in the midst of the Atlantic nine years ago. How different his own life would have been if he had.

But these thoughts were all trivial in comparison to the troubling fact that this morning's conversation had brought to light.

If Sparrow's plan to retrieve the heart fell through, then he _had_ to have a bargaining chip, lest he spend the rest of his life in the service of Davy Jones. Yet, to possess such a bargaining chip was to forfeit Elizabeth.

He was being forced into an impossible choice.

A year ago, had he been made to decide between himself and Miss Swann, he wouldn't have hesitated to save the woman he loved. But now... now, he had tasted her deceit, and Tortuga had taught him to put his own concerns before the concerns of others. As it were, his own selfishness and whatever it was that he felt for Elizabeth were hung equally in the balance.

And even if they did find the heart in time? What then? Was he to simply take it then and there and abandon the _Pearl_ and everyone aboard, leaving them either to remain marooned on an island or suffer the wrath of the _Flying Dutchman_? Or was he meant to bide his time and wrench it from Sparrow at a later date? Surely the pirate would keep it under close watch, in which case James knew he would have to fight for it. He wondered how many of the crew he could kill before they overwhelmed him...

The more he thought the harder he scrubbed, and soon the rag began to disintegrate against the boards of the deck. He picked it up and looked at it in disgust, before tightly balling the remnants in his fist and going back to work, but he had barely started when a pair of boots stopped just at the edge of his vision.

"I do trust that this bonnie vessel and her humble crew are living up to your lofty standards, eh, former commodore?" asked Sparrow, and it was impossible to ignore the derision in his voice.

James's knuckles whitened around the rag, and when he looked up, he poured every ounce of his hatred into a seething glare.

Jack bared his teeth in a grimace. "I'll take that as a no, then," he grunted, before swaggering off towards the stern. James watched him go, and thought for a moment that it would almost be worth it to kill him right here and now, compass and heart be damned.

It wasn't yet noon when he heard Elizabeth's voice somewhere close by. He glanced towards the sound, seeing her standing next to Gibbs and Sparrow with the compass in hand, and he knew that they were getting another heading. With a resigned sigh, he went back to scrubbing.

Ten minutes more had gone by when her voice cut through the air again.

"Yes, they're signed. Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company."

His head shot up and he stared across the deck, looking on as Jack held up a sheaf of paper backed with leather. It was the sort of leather used for official documents– official documents such as Letters of Marque.

That duplicitous little siren... She'd had them with her the entire time and never said a word.

The rest of the conversation was a blur. He simply watched in horror as Jack folded up the sheaf and tucked it inside his jacket before starting to walk away. Apparently Elizabeth felt rather the same way about it, because he vaguely heard her demand them back.

He squinted as he watched the exchange, trying to comprehend exactly what was happening between them. Sparrow said something that sounded very much like "persuade me," and Elizabeth drew terribly close to him... And when he turned around to face her, there was something in the way that both of them were looking at one another...

To James's surprise, something fiercely protective sprang to life inside of him– as well as something fiercely jealous. Jack Sparrow had a ship, a crew, a life; he had the compass, he had the Letters; and now he was after Elizabeth. Was there anything he wouldn't have before the end?

Elizabeth turned away from the pirate, who made no effort to follow her, and on her way to the railing she walked right past James without even noticing. His lip curled in annoyance and he dropped the rag onto the deck, pushing himself up and grimacing at the ache in his joints. Two months of lying drunk in the streets of Tortuga had done him no favors. He made his way over to her slowly, and as he approached he could see that she was absently smiling as she stared at the sea. The jealous thing in him coiled. She had rejected him for another, and now it looked very much as though she were preparing to do the same thing to Turner... and for Jack Sparrow, no less. He wondered why he was doomed to love such a woman, but he knew there was no logical explanation. There was nothing at all logical about love.

"It's a curious thing," he began, wheeling around and taking the spot next to her, propping his elbows against the railing with his back to the ocean, "There was a time when I would've given anything for you to look like that while thinking about me."

His grimace faded into a wry smile, and she turned around, flustered.

"I don't know what you mean," she insisted, but the words came just a bit too quickly.

He looked at her, feeling his lips twist in distaste again. "Oh I think you do," he said darkly, making no attempt to hide the bitterness in his voice.

"Oh, don't be absurd!" she replied in exasperation, rolling her eyes, "I trust him, that's all."

When he began to snicker at her she looked genuinely offended, but that didn't stop him from raising his brows and shooting her a pitying glance. Was she really so naive as to believe that Sparrow didn't have a self-serving interest in everything he did? They all fit into his plans somehow, of that much James was certain.

He pushed himself away from the railing, unable to keep himself from smirking at her childish behavior, but he had barely gone ten feet when the darker side of him began to prod, insisting he goad her with one final remark. Suddenly the thought of her having the last word seemed unbearable, so he stopped and spun round on his heel to face her.

"So you never wondered how your _latest_ fiancé ended up on the _Flying Dutchman_ in the first place?" he asked, and when he saw the look on her face he knew he had won. She stared back at him, opening her mouth to say something but then thinking better of it, and he shook his head at her as if she were something particularly pathetic before he turned and walked away.

He still couldn't recall becoming a cruel man.

"James!" she called, and he heard her footsteps start after him. He didn't stop, thudding down the stairs to the gun deck and finding it deserted, but he knew that Elizabeth was not far behind.

"_James!_" she snapped, this time with considerably more force, and he turned slowly around.

"What do you mean?" she demanded, hands on her hips, and he could see that she was doing her best to be confident, but worry still seeped through the facade.

He regarded her sourly. Could she really not make the leap of logic herself? Or did she just want to hear it straight from him?

"James, what did you mean?" she repeated impatiently, an edge in her voice. She was glaring at him now.

"You really believe that Sparrow had absolutely nothing to do with the unfortunate fate of your dearly beloved?" he asked with a sneer, "That he's helping you to find the chest out of the goodness of his heart?"

The worry on her face multiplied. "Well, no, but–"

"I'm afraid that the good captain has incurred the wrath of Davy Jones, and handed over Mister Turner to save his own skin."

"You're lying," she whispered, now looking truly horrified.

A vicious smile broke across his features. "Oh I assure you, it's very much the truth," he replied wryly, "Though I suppose I can hardly blame you for defending him, considering you seem to share the same opinion of honesty."

The harshness of the remark surprised even him.

"What on earth are you talking about?" she exclaimed, gaping.

"So you simply forgot to mention that you were carrying the Letters with you, then?" he concluded sarcastically.

"I had no reason to advertise the fact!" she shot back, nearly yelling as she took a confrontational step forward, "And now I can see that I was obviously right not to tell you!"

He snorted in laughter. "I imagine if you knew the things I've done you would hardly trust me enough to tell me anything."

"Oh yes," she hissed, her voice now holding just as much venom as his own, "I do recall you mentioning last night, despite being so drunk you could hardly stand, why the _Dauntless_ sank in the first place."

Just like it had in the Tortugan alleyway, his anger finally tore loose.

"I was chasing down Sparrow in an attempt to right your mistake!" he spat, stepping towards her and closing the gap between them, "If you and Turner hadn't helped the bastard escape he'd be dead and none of us would _be_ _here!_" They had both resorted to shouting now, and it was a miracle that none of the crew had come to see what the matter was.

She flushed in indignation. "Don't you dare blame me for your own misfortune!" she snarled, and he suddenly thought that she seemed terribly attractive when she was furious.

He leaned forward and kissed her.

He didn't know why he did it. Maybe it was because she was standing so very close, or because he knew that no matter what he did now he couldn't possibly damage their relationship any further. Maybe it was because he knew that none of it would matter soon, because one of them was doomed anyway. He just hadn't decided who.

She didn't try to pull away at first, instead freezing on the spot, and he savored the moment before it ended. She tasted like sea salt and ship's grog, and he knew that he could have enjoyed this a long time ago if he hadn't insisted on bottling his feelings so completely.

When she finally jerked backwards and she stared at him in shock, he utterly failed to hold back the thoroughly amused and self-satisfied smirk that spread across his face, and for an instant he was sure that she was going to slap him. Instead, she took a step back, her lips curling in disgust.

"You're nothing but a rum-soaked blackguard, James Norrington," she hissed quietly through bared teeth, and she gave him one final reproachful look before turning towards the stairs.

"And I thought you rather liked those," he called after her, and she stopped halfway up the steps to glare at him, open-mouthed, but he wheeled around and walked away.

And as he went, he couldn't help but wonder where Sparrow kept the rum.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**I had a hard time with the dialogue on this chapter. I hope it doesn't show too much. Also, thanks to everyone who has favorited/followed/reviewed! The continued support is very appreciated!**


	7. Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

**The butterfly effect propagates...**

**Also, a thanks to ShadoPirate for their continued support! Go check out their story "The Heartless"!**

**As always, reviews are very much appreciated.**

* * *

"My tremendous intuitive sense of the female creature informs me that you are... troubled," said Jack as he plopped down on the stairs beside her, rum bottle in hand.

She shot him a glance, wondering if he could see the newfound mistrust in her eyes, before staring back towards the bow of the _Pearl_. She had come here with the intention of avoiding James, because it was easy to spot anyone coming up from below deck, but neither had she wanted to draw Jack's attention.

"I just thought I'd be married by now," she said quietly, and it was only half a lie. The statement itself was sincere, but it was hardly the cause for her sullenness. "I'm so ready to be married."

The argument had left a bitter taste in her mouth. Everything about this James Norrington was so unlike the James Norrington she remembered. She had seen last night that he was a changed man, but she hadn't realized exactly how changed. There was a cruelness in him that had not existed before. She had seen that too in the filthy Tortugan alleyway, but she had attributed it to the rum. Yet less than half an hour ago, in a perfectly sober state, he had known precisely the things to say to infuriate her, and he had enjoyed saying them. Of course, she had known precisely the things to say to goad the same reaction out of him.

Maybe he wasn't the only one who had changed.

She recalled the last day that she had seen him, thinking it seemed impossible that just a year had gone by since she had watched his promotion to commodore, and she realized with a pang of sadness that both of their past selves no longer existed. The naive governor's daughter and the young Navy captain had died somewhere in the past twelve months, now living on only in memories.

Jack offered her his bottle of rum, and she hardly hesitated before taking it and swigging, frowning all the while. She was starting to understand what Jack and James saw in the stuff.

"You know... Lizzy..." began Jack, shifting on the step to draw closer to her, "I am captain of a ship. And _being_ captain of a ship, I could in fact perform a... marrìage," He drew out the syllables, squinting at her with kohl-rimmed eyes, "Right here. Right on this deck. Right... _now._"

He leaned toward her with the last word and she recoiled at the foulness of his breath. She grimaced, thrusting the bottle back into his hands and pushing herself to her feet.

"No thank you," she called as she walked away, but he followed her.

"Why not?" he asked insistently, and with an annoyed sigh she wondered if this was how James had felt when she had pressed him for information earlier.

But that situation had been different, she reminded herself.

"We _are_ very much alike, you and I. I and you. Us."

"We most certainly are not!" she exclaimed, perhaps a bit too quickly as she turned to stare at him in horror. James had accused her of sharing traits with Sparrow, and now Jack himself was saying it.

He took hold of the rigging and swayed closer. "Even so, you _will_ come over to my side."

Her jaw clenched. "You seem very sure," she replied tightly.

"One word, love: curiosity," he said with that knowing, charming smile, "You long for freedom. You want to do what you want to do because you want it. To act on selfish impulse. You want to see what it's like." The smile broke into a rakish grin. "One day, you won't be able to resist."

She looked at him, leaned against the railing, and narrowed her eyes.

"Very well then. If you and I are so similar, then surely you would have the decency to answer a question honestly if it was asked of you," she remarked.

"Absolutely, love."

She watched him closely. "Is it true that you're indebted to Davy Jones?"

A dramatic frown crossed his face as he stepped towards her. "And might I inquire as to the source of such an outlandish rumor?"

"It's not difficult to overhear things on a ship, Jack," she lied, smirking, and she was surprised at how natural it sounded. Did she really have a talent for dishonesty? Had James been right?

She saw his lip twitch in disapproval and he forced an expression of indifference. "There is perhaps a small and trifling matter which as of yet remains unsettled..." he explained airily, gesturing with the rum bottle.

Her heart sank and her fear from last night, that she had been playing into one of his schemes, resurfaced with a vengeance.

Had James been right about everything?

"Then is that what happened to Will?" she pressed quietly, fighting back the emotion that threatened to break her voice.

"I haven't the slightest idea what you mean, love," he replied with apathy as he turned to sidle away, but she wasn't about to let him go so easily.

"Did you turn him over to Jones as payment?" she demanded, unable to hide her disgust.

He stopped in mid-step and spun around to face her again. "As I said before," he began, and there was something dangerous now behind his flamboyance, "Poor William was the unfortunate victim of regrettable but entirely unforeseeable circumstances, and will so remain until such a time that the heart of Davy Jones can be used to release him from his fate." He paused, leveling his eyes at her. "Savvy?"

It was almost a threat, and she stared at him in amazement, wondering how he expected her to possibly believe a word he said. She closed the gap between them, reaching forward to wrap her fingers around the rum bottle. "Just know that I am doing this for Will," she hissed, wrenching the drink from his hand, "And not for you, or for myself, or for anyone else."

She turned and began to walk away.

As she crossed the deck, all she felt was disappointment. Disappointment in the way this entire misadventure was playing out, disappointment in Jack for his blatant dishonesty and manipulation, disappointment in herself for trusting him so easily.

It seemed the only person who hadn't lied to her in the past twenty-four hours was, ironically, James Norrington. At least he had told her the truth, even if his intent had been to wound.

When she reached the steps that led to the galley she paused only long enough to take a swig from the rum bottle, trying to muster the courage to do what she felt she had to do, before taking the plunge and disappearing below deck.


	8. A Truce

She found him sitting alone, staring at the sea through one of the gun ports with his back to a cannon. He didn't notice her when she walked up beside him, and she wondered if he was simply ignoring her or if he was so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn't even realized she was there. It wasn't until she sat down opposite him, crossed her legs, and propped the rum bottle against her knee that he glanced at her, his eyes lingering for a moment, but the venom from earlier was gone.

It was still a wonder to her that he was the same man to whom she had once been engaged. He certainly didn't look like it. It was almost impossible to see any trace of his old self through the dirt and grime, the untrimmed beard, or the bedraggled strands of filthy hair that wouldn't quite stay in the ribbon at the nape of his neck. And though she knew he was barely over thirty, he seemed older somehow, careworn and cynical, the lines of his face deepened by troubles she could only imagine. He had lost everything he had ever loved, and in anger she had mocked him for it.

Her stomach twisted in regret as the vague sense of responsibility began to nag at the back of her mind. Now she knew that he hadn't been wrong to say that freeing Jack had been a mistake, and she wondered how to tell him so. But she was held back by the fear of the snide comments that she knew he would throw at her, so she stared down at her lap and absently picked at a nail.

When she finally took a breath and opened her mouth to say something, he beat her to it.

"I believe I owe you an apology," he said slowly, and she looked up and saw that he was watching her from the corner of his eye. For no reason she could think of, she felt the blood rush to her face.

"It was a bit rash," she admitted sheepishly. Neither one of them cared to clarify, because they both knew exactly what he was apologizing for.

There was an awkward silence.

"You were right, you know," she finally told him, her voice quiet and bitter, "About Jack."

"A fact that I take no pleasure in," he replied gently.

A wry smile tugged at the corners of her lips. "You certainly seemed to be enjoying yourself earlier."

"Don't mistake my hatred of Sparrow as an endorsement of his wickedness," he shot back, before his brows furrowed, "Just because I would like to see him hanged doesn't mean I actually wish to be present when he does something that could doom us all."

"What do you mean?" she asked, a slight frown crossing her.

His expression turned dark. "Turner's isn't the only soul he's willing to trade for his own."

"You think Jack would hand us over Davy Jones?" she said incredulously, because it sounded at first to be an incredibly ridiculous supposition to make. But then, if Jack had so easily sacrificed Will...

"I doubt that he would condemn you to such a fate."

She stared at him. "You can't be serious."

"And what could I possibly gain by lying?" he asked with a tired sigh, and she could see that he was just as weary of arguing as she was.

She chewed at her lip, looking down at the rough boards of the deck. Was she really so blind that she couldn't see what kind of a man Jack was? She had known that he was infamous, that he was a pirate, that he was capable of terrible acts... But she had never expected to be affected by any of those acts. Perhaps the naive governor's daughter wasn't entirely gone after all.

"He saved my life," she said hollowly after a long pause.

James blinked.

"I would have probably drowned if it hadn't been for him," she went on, thinking back to the day that she had fallen from the top of Fort Charles. Everything about it– the extraordinarily stiff ceremony, the extraordinarily stiff corset, and the extraordinarily stiff Commodore Norrington– all seemed to be utterly ludicrous in the face of this new, grim reality. "And in the caves on Isla de Muerta. Barbossa was going to shoot me but Jack killed him."

He snorted in derision. "Unfortunately along with a number of my men," he muttered, and she looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"How else do you think Barbossa and his crew knew that we were waiting for them?" he asked.

She stared, realizing that, in the midst of all that had happened with Will, the skeletal pirates, and the cursed treasure, she had never wondered why the _Dauntless_ had come under attack.

"Sparrow told them where we were anchored. I can only assume that he was trying to rid himself of both us and them. Killing two birds with one stone, as it were." He flashed a sardonic smile. "It was sheer luck that his crew decided it was in their best interest to take the _Pearl_ and leave before the _Dauntless_ could reduce her to splinters."

A sick feeling began to grow in the pit of her stomach. She had returned to Port Royal aboard the _Dauntless_ after the battle of the Isla de Muerta, and she remembered how many canvas-wrapped corpses had been dropped into the sea.

At the time she had been so enamored with pursuing Will that none of that had seemed to matter. It had been a tragedy, to be sure, but an impersonal one. It wasn't as though she had known any of the men who had died. Then, in the aftermath, she had been entirely occupied with the idea of marriage, followed by the idea of the wedding, until Lord Cutler Beckett had arrived and interrupted her idyll.

"I've been such a fool," she whispered miserably, and when she looked at him she was surprised to see her pain reflected in his eyes. It was an expression she might have expected from Will, or maybe her father, but not from him.

"As are we all," he replied with a sad smile, "At one time or another."

Of course he was speaking from experience, and somehow that made it worse.

"You did so much for me, James," she told him, her voice deathly quiet, and she wondered if he could hear the tears threatening to drown her words. "And I was so dishonest to you..." She trailed off as she thought back to what had happened after he had rescued her from starving on an island with Jack Sparrow– how she had used his offer of marriage to her advantage, how he had pressed her for sincerity, how she had held onto the lie.

It wasn't the first time she had regretted her actions that day. Sometimes, in the darkness of still nights, when the sins of the past surfaced to haunt those still awake, she remembered how she had wronged and manipulated a good man. But those concerns were so easily pushed aside with Will and her father nearby, when James Norrington had existed happily in the Mediterranean in her mind. Now it was impossible to push them aside when he was sitting here staring her in the face and bringing with him an entire host of bad memories.

"You knew all along, didn't you? Even when I accepted your proposal, you knew..."

"That you intended to choose Turner," he finished bitterly, his voice wavering.

It almost physically hurt to hear it from him. The sick feeling spread, and for an instant she wondered if maybe she deserved everything that was happening. Maybe this was the universe's way of setting things right after she had helped to avert the execution of Jack Sparrow.

For another instant, she wished she had let him die, but then she knew she would have regretted that too.

Nothing was making any sense anymore.

"Then why did you even agree to search for him?" she asked, trying to understand why he had risked his ship and his crew for the life of one man if he had not been deferring to her as his wife-to-be, as she had always believed. She had heard him make the excuse that Will was a citizen of the Crown and therefore under his protection, but even her father had not been convinced of the decision. "If we had returned to Port Royal, you and I would have been married."

"And you would never have forgiven me," he replied, staring wistfully out the gun port, and again she knew he was right.

There was a long silence before he looked at her, and for a startling instant she could see the kind and gentlemanly commodore again. But she could also see pained sadness and longing.

"Love is a curious thing, Elizabeth," he said softly, and suddenly her heart forgot how to beat.

She didn't know why it surprised her. It was something she was supposed to have known all along after her father assumed the role of matchmaker: that James loved her, that he would propose, and that they would be wed. But never once had he claimed to love her. He had barely even showed it, at least not in ways that she had recognized. He had always been so calm and collected, so put-together in a manner she thought to be terribly dull, that it was difficult to tell if he felt anything at all. Of course he had been respectful, honorable, and caring, but she had never thought of him as a loving man. It was Will who had defined that standard for her, with his impetuous nature and sometimes imprudent display of emotion, and that was why she had chosen him.

But this James was not the old James. This James had shown passion, even if it had been in anger, and now she wondered if his old self had been the facade and she was only now really seeing him for the first time.

She didn't know what to say to him, except maybe, for once, the truth.

"You know I never meant to hurt you," she said quietly, though to her it seemed that for something so honest it still sounded terribly contrived and false. Perhaps he would still understand.

Something in his face told her that he did, and she felt the knot of worry that had been balled in her stomach begin to uncoil. She sighed, and they sat in silence, watching the waves roll by as the horizon bobbed in the distance.

"I don't want to be your enemy, James," she finally added, and they looked at each other. He seemed to struggle with something for a few moments before managing a small smile.

"I wouldn't want it either," he admitted, and for the first time since Will had left Port Royal, she felt almost happy. Maybe they could somehow regain a piece of what they'd had before. They had been friends, once. She had memories, pulled from so deeply out of the past that they remained untainted by the more recent events, of times he had visited her father's home, when they had been capable of having a legitimate conversation with one another. She could even remember the excruciatingly long voyage from England, years and years ago, how she had whiled away the hours learning the rules of chess from him, and how he had grown increasingly frustrated with her complete inability to comprehend tactics, but he had never quite given up. They had both been so much younger then, neither one of them carrying the troubles they carried now. Then life had intervened, she had grown closer to Will, and James had concerned himself only with the Navy. The rift between them had started then, and she hoped that the past year had not opened it beyond repair. Perhaps, if they tried, they could be friends again.

"It's a truce, then," she said, feeling almost amused, her spirits higher now than they had been all day.

He scooted towards her and leaned forward to take the nearly-empty bottle of rum that had been sitting, quite forgotten, beside her knee.

"Shall we drink to it?" he asked, wryly smirking and lifting the bottle in a mock toast before taking a swig. When he finished, he looked pleasantly surprised. "If anything must be said for Sparrow, it's that he has excellent taste in rum," he said resignedly as he offered the drink back to her.

She had just taken it when somewhere above them, on the main deck, the cry rang out that land was in sight.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

**So, this chapter hated my guts. It did not want to be written in any form or fashion, hence the long wait for the update. Plus school was extremely annoying this week, and promises to become even more annoying in the future. **

**I also hope I am not butchering Elizabeth's point of view too horribly.**


	9. One Heart for Another

They didn't speak to one another in the longboat, despite being squeezed shoulder to shoulder in the aft end of the small vessel, and James supposed that their armistice was still too fragile to withstand the onslaught of another conversation. Instead they listened to Pintel and Ragetti bicker, while Jack sat silently in the prow, clutching his jar of dirt.

After the shouting match, he had been so ready to give up on her. When she had trudged up the stairs and left him to brood, he had told himself that he was finished making sacrifices in her name, that he didn't care if she and Turner were forced to run forever from the East India Trading Company. He had come to the brink, ready to submit to his own desires, claim the heart for himself, and toss the thought of Elizabeth Swann over the edge along with the tattered remnants of their relationship. Then she had sat down beside him and admitted to her sins. She had told him he was right, taken responsibility for what she had done to him, even confessed to being a fool. She had told him the truth, and in doing so had broken through the calloused shell surrounding his heart in the way that only she could manage. And when she had said that she didn't want to be at odds and she had claimed a truce, he had found it impossible to hate her.

Now, the conflict had returned with a vengeance. Every passing moment was another step closer to their goal, and he still had not yet made a decision. He supposed that the choice would come to him when the time was right.

Sand crunched against the hull as they ran aground in the shallows, and when they had dragged the longboat onto the beach, Jack grabbed a shovel and began walking.

"Guard the boat, mind the tide, don't touch my dirt," he ordered as he trudged towards the desolate cap of greenery that was Isla Cruces.

James lagged behind, intending to bring up the end of their procession so that he could mull his troubles alone, but, to his surprise, Elizabeth stayed beside him. She flipped open the compass, watched as the dial swivelled straight ahead, and then started after Jack. He met her stride, and together they crossed the vast stretch of empty shoals.

It really was a beautiful place. Much too beautiful, he thought, to serve as the resting place for the wretched heart of Davy Jones. The water here was never more than knee-deep, appearing the palest shade of blue against stark white cays, and every now and then an outcropping of vegetation would dot the landscape. The swell of the island itself was covered with lush palms and thick, tropical grass, looking entirely untouched by human hands, but as they drew closer he was surprised to see stone ruins tainting the hillside.

Elizabeth stopped ahead of him to examine the compass, the splash of her boots in the shallows stopping abruptly, and he drew up next to her as he squinted at the crumbling church tower.

"I didn't expect anybody to be here," he remarked, tightening his grip on the shovel propped against his shoulder, and Elizabeth turned to look in the same direction. After a moment she shook her head.

"There's not."

"You know this place?" he asked in fascination. Even he was unfamiliar with the area, and he had sailed these waters for years.

"Stories," she replied softly, "Isla Cruces. The church came to the island and brought salvation." There was a hint of bitter irony in her voice. "And disease. And death."

They both stared at the deserted building, and he noticed now that the ground around it was pockmarked with graves.

"They say the priest had to bury everybody one by one," she went on, as though she were telling a ghost story to a child, "He went mad and hung himself."

Somehow he thought he could relate to the unfortunate reverend. When he had first arrived in Tortuga, he had still been a relatively moral man of high standards. But the chaotic, vice-ridden atmosphere had worn him down until he had caved into his misery, and he had become indistinguishable from any other drunken vagrant walking the filthy streets.

"Better mad with the rest of the world than sane alone," he muttered sardonically, and when he looked at her he found her looking back as though he were a stranger. Granted, the James Norrington she had known would have said nothing of the sort. It seemed that they were both having difficulty adjusting to each other's newer selves.

There was the sound of sloshing steps and Jack's voice broke the moment.

"No fraternizing with the help, love," he said, shooting Elizabeth a half-grin as she turned around. He stepped aside and swept out an arm, and she glared at him before stomping off in the direction of the ruins. He continued to hold the pose as he looked back at the former commodore.

"Oh after you, sir," insisted James as he mockingly deferred to the pirate, motioning him along, but to his chagrin Sparrow offered up his own shovel. His jaw clenched and he reached out, but when he took hold of the handle he jerked it towards him and Jack came stumbling forward, narrowing the gap between them.

"Mark my words, Sparrow," he hissed in a low voice, meeting the man's kohl-rimmed eyes, "If any harm comes to her, I'll have your head."

Jack let go of the shovel with a flourish and swayed to one side. "I'm afraid the last time you tried that it didn't work out very well for you at all, now did it, then?" he asked, tilting his head and smirking. It wasn't difficult to determine that he was referencing the botched execution a year ago. James felt his hatred flare, and he channeled it into a vicious scowl.

"Oh I think you'll find I'm a bit more direct about things now," he threatened.

"And that may certainly be true," Sparrow replied reasonably, before his expression grew dangerous, "But know this, mate. You come between a pirate and his prize, then you best be willing to suffer the consequences, savvy?"

They glared at one another before Jack turned and began to splash away after Elizabeth.

"I have no doubt that you would try to kill me, Sparrow," called James in a nonchalant tone as he followed the other man, a shovel in each hand, "You were, after all, planning on handing me over to Davy Jones, which is very nearly the same thing."

Jack's step faltered, but the next instant he was swaggering along as confidently as ever.

"A task that wouldn't be terribly difficult to achieve, I'm afraid, given your present condition," he commented, looking back over his shoulder, "Ay, former commodore?"

James snorted. "I believe you, of all people, should know that drunkenness does not always constitute incompetence," he drawled, "I'm still quite capable with a sword, I can assure you."

Jack was preparing his retort when Elizabeth interrupted.

"I think I've found it!" she shouted, and they both snapped in her direction. She was walking half-circles on a sandy knoll and watching the compass.

Sparrow practically took off sprinting while James followed at a considerably more leisurely pace, and by the time he set foot on land the pirate was pacing impatiently. Jack stopped moving just long enough to wave his hands at the ground and whistle as though he were commanding a dog to perform, but James ignored him and looked to Elizabeth with raised brows.

"There," she explained, pointing at a flat spot.

He turned to Sparrow and thrust a shovel towards him, smirking. Jack's lip twitched in distaste.

"That's what you're here for, mate," he grunted.

"I'm sorry, I assumed you wouldn't want the fate of your eternal soul hinging entirely upon the capabilities of someone in my condition," James shot back with a wicked smile.

For a moment Jack look truly conflicted, a pained expression creasing his features, before he gingerly took the shovel as if it were a disgusting thing.

Together they broke ground and began to dig.

When James heard the thud and felt his spade hit something solid, shock bolted through him. He and Sparrow exchanged glances and Elizabeth joined them, looking equally surprised, before they all three plunged into the hole, brushing away sand to reveal an ancient and weathered wooden trunk. Together, they lifted it out, and Jack broke through the lock with the blade of his shovel before kneeling and lifting the lid. Inside was a layer of parchment and carefully folded letters sealed with red wax, and Elizabeth took one, sitting down next to Jack.

James dropped to his knees beside the chest, staring at the contents. He knew that since he had boarded the _Pearl_, he had treated the idea of Davy Jones's heart as an actuality, but now he realized that some fundamental part of him hadn't truly believed it to be real. Now it couldn't be denied.

He scanned over the letters, seeing that many were marked '_David_' in a woman's hand. Of course he had heard those stories too, just as every sailor had. They all knew the tale of how the dreaded captain had fallen so deeply in love with a woman that he had sacrificed his own happiness for her sake, only for her to shun him for another.

The painful familiarity of it all struck him like lightning, and he felt his own heart ache.

Sparrow brushed away the parchment to reveal a smaller chest, ornate and intricately sealed, and he carefully removed it. Collectively the trio leaned in, and they all heard the beating.

James sat back on his knees. "You actually were telling the truth," he breathed, glancing at Jack in wonderment before gaping at the chest again, and he knew that he was really looking at the mausoleum of an entire romance.

"I do that quite a lot, yet people are always surprised," replied Sparrow, his eyes widening as he smiled wryly.

"And with good reason!"

It was absolutely the last voice that James expected to hear in that moment. In fact, he might have been less surprised had Gillette walked onto the beach in full uniform and saluted him.

"_Will!_" cried Elizabeth as she jumped to her feet, running to throw herself onto the sopping wet figure of William Turner, "You're alright, thank God! I came to find you!" And she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him.

The jealous thing within James roared to life again, and he looked away to stare at the sand.

"How did you get here?" demanded Jack, sounding nearly as irate and shocked as James felt.

The two lovers broke apart and Turner glared at Sparrow. "Sea turtles, mate," he replied, "A pair of them, strapped to my feet."

"Not so easy, is it?"

"But I do owe you thanks, Jack," added the blacksmith.

"You do?"

Turner plunged on, unable to hide the disgust in his voice. "After you tricked me onto that ship to square your debt with Jones."

James lifted his head at the words, and Elizabeth, despite still clinging onto Will, met his eyes. For a moment he thought that she looked grateful.

"I was reunited with my father."

"Oh!" exclaimed Jack, and he paused, "Well... you're welcome, then."

Will pulled away from Elizabeth and walked to the smaller chest, drawing a dagger from within his jacket with one hand and holding a key with the other, dropping to his knees.

"Oi! What are you doing?" Sparrow pressed, squinting.

"I'm going to kill Jones."

Something inside James froze, and he watched as Jack drew his sword and pointed it at Turner.

"Can't let you do that, William," he explained, and James, for once, agreed with Sparrow, "'Cause if Jones is dead, who's to call his terrible beastie off the hunt, eh?"

Turner looked up at the pirate, and there was a long silence before he slowly stood and backed away from the chest.

"Now, if you please, the key."

For a moment it looked like Turner was going to comply, but then he suddenly took hold of his fiance's sword and crossed it with Jack's, Elizabeth stumbling backwards in surprise.

"I keep the promises I make, Jack," sneered William, "I intend to free my father. I hope you're here to see it."

It was James's dislike of Turner that tipped the balance. Seeing him with Elizabeth again had brought dulled hatred roiling to the surface, and he remembered why imagining Turner aboard the _Dutchman_ had pleased him. Suddenly the thought of the blacksmith getting his way yet again, regardless of consequences, became too much to bear, and he decided that he simply couldn't let that happen. In an instant, his cutlass was in his hand.

"I can't let you do that either," he smirked, thinking that it felt truly wonderful to finally threaten the insufferable boy, "So sorry."

"I knew you'd warm up to me eventually," began Jack, stepping forward, but James turned the weapon on him and he halted, lifting his blade to point at Turner. In response, Turner aimed at the former commodore.

"Lord Beckett desires the contents of that chest," said James slowly, trying not to think about Elizabeth, who was gaping at the three of them, "I deliver it, I get my life back."

So that was it, then. He had made his choice. With Turner in the picture again, his relationship with Elizabeth would die once more. There was nothing for him here. If he were to ever be whole again, he had to move on, and the only way to move on was to claim the heart.

Jack grinned. "Ah, the dark side of ambition."

"Oh I prefer to think of it as the promise of redemption," James replied, his lips twisting into a savage half-smile.

He made the first move, drawing back and aiming a blow at Turner, though he knew the blacksmith would parry it. Turner moved aside, meeting blades with Jack before ducking beneath James's sword, leaving the former commodore and the pirate to cross weapons.

William took off along the beach and the other two followed suit, while Elizabeth shouted at them as if they had gone mad.

James's longer stride carried him quickly to Turner and with a furious yell he swung at him, steel meeting steel, and they traded blows until Jack caught up with them. They both rounded to assault him and they all three locked swords.

"We can _not_ let him get the chest, mate, trust me on this one!" Jack insisted, looking at William, and James squinted at him.

"You can mistrust me less than you can mistrust him, trust me!"

There was a pause and Jack frowned at his own words. Turner only stared back.

"He just wants the Letters for himself," James bit out through clenched teeth, looking to Turner and trying to pull his weapon away from the other two, but it remained firmly wedged in place.

"Pot, kettle, black!" smirked Sparrow, and with a furious snarl James reached up and shoved, slashing at Jack, who stumbled backwards. But the pirate knocked aside the blade and ducked, leaving the former commodore to cross Turner instead, and James saw Sparrow snatch the key out of Turner's grasp before starting across the sandbar.

The blacksmith tried to follow but James fought him back, and they dueled until James saw the opening and took it, landing a solid kick into Turner's chest and sending the lad sprawling. Somewhere in the background, he could hear Elizabeth shouting, and he saw her run to her fiance's aid.

They could rot together for all he cared.

He turned and sprinted after Sparrow, knowing the blacksmith wouldn't be far behind, while Elizabeth yelled at his back.

It was hardly a wonder that, in the midst of the chaos, none of them noticed the crew of the _Flying Dutchman_ emerging from the shallows.

* * *

It wasn't until the axe hit the tree that anyone realized Jones's crew had arrived.

She was sitting on the sand and resignedly watching the fight, ignored by the three currently most important men in her life, when she noticed the perpetual troublemakers Pintel and Ragetti making off with the chest. She didn't even try to alert the others, since every single attempt she had made thus far to get their attention had gone entirely unnoticed as they circled around each other, trading blows.

She had understood why Will had drawn on Jack, but James plunging into the conflict had come as a surprise. Of course, then it had made sense. Turning the heart over to Beckett was the only foreseeable way of regaining anything remotely similar to his previous life, and she couldn't blame him for wanting that. She had seen firsthand the miserable existence he currently led.

She chased after Pintel and Ragetti, forgetting that she had no sword, and when she caught up with them in the grove of palms she thought that they were going to finish the job they had failed at a year ago in Port Royal, before she had demanded parley. But instead the three of them watched in fascination as the water wheel rolled by with Will and James atop it, dueling like madmen, while Jack followed.

And then the axe had hit the tree, and they had turned collectively to see an entire hoard of fish-men racing towards them.

They fought Jones's crew through the jungle, tossing their two swords between them until Pintel disarmed one of the fish-men and took his weapon. Somewhere along the way they lost the chest, but that had become the least of their concerns.

When they broke out of the palms and back onto the beach they weren't far from where the longboat was mired, and the three of them sprinted in the direction of it with the cursed crew in hot pursuit. They were not yet halfway there when Jones's men caught up to them.

Elizabeth held them off as they pressed in from all around and she struggled to keep her back to Pintel and Ragetti, as their teamwork was the only thing keeping the three of them alive. She thanked God that Will had possessed the foresight to teach her swordsmanship, and she knew he had been right to insist that she practice. Certain movements were second nature to her now, and instinctively she parried a blow and kicked away her opponent's blade.

But they were fighting a losing battle, and the only respite came when the water wheel suddenly reappeared, this time rolling at full speed, and she could have sworn she saw someone inside it. Both sides of the conflict stopped entirely to stare as it passed by, and it came to a halt in the shoals yards away before toppling onto its side.

She was still squinting at the motionless wheel when the fish-man in front of her struck, and she was far from prepared. She felt the bite of a blade as it grazed her shoulder and she squealed, hacking aimlessly at her attacker. Behind her, Pintel and Ragetti were dealing with their own troubles and were no help at all when her sword was knocked out of her hands, splashing into the shallow water that now boiled with the movement of a dozen boots.

She watched, open-mouthed, as her weapon sailed through the air and then disappeared, and when she turned back around she came face to face with a shark-like grin and a cutlass. And the cutlass lifted up and then came down in slow motion, and she realized with horror that there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it.

* * *

When he felt the jolt of the wheel hitting the ground, he assumed that it was safe to let go, gingerly releasing the vice grip he'd had on the wooden spars and falling into knee-deep water. It seemed like they had been stuck in this spinning deathtrap for an eternity, and he collapsed in the shallows while his vision continued to whirl. He thought that he might be sick again, but after last night and this morning he wasn't sure how there was anything left in him to throw up.

It wasn't until he heard splashing that he moved, and he looked over to see Turner attempting to scramble out of the wheel. Of course, Jack had made off with the key just before leaving them to careen over the side of a hill, and Turner was still hellbent on stabbing the heart.

James wasn't about to let that happen.

He felt around in the water until his hand closed around the handle of his cutlass, and then together he and Turner clambered over the side. When he tipped over the edge he lost his balance and went sprawling into the shallows, gasping as salt water stung his eyes, but he rolled over onto all fours and forced himself to his feet again.

Immediately, he locked on to the longboat in the distance and saw the chest quite clearly sitting inside it, completely unguarded as Sparrow sparred with one of Jones's crew. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to walk over and claim it, and he had taken his first step towards it when he heard the scream.

It was a woman's voice, and he knew of only one woman on this entire miserable island.

He spun around in time to watch as Elizabeth's sword flew from her grasp. The whole scene seemed to play out at half-speed, and he realized with a shot of adrenaline that Pintel and Ragetti were far too occupied to even notice what had happened, while Turner, who was barely managing to crawl, would be of no immediate use to anyone.

Suddenly, despite his deliberating, despite all of the time that he had spent weighing the importance of his own future against the fate of the woman he loved, his mind suddenly went clear and the entire universe focused on Elizabeth Swann. Whatever selfish concerns he might have had before inexplicably vanished, and he took off at a sprint towards the raging battle.

He had made the impossible decision, and he hadn't thought twice about it.


	10. The Consequences of Caring

Elizabeth was staring at the cutlass swinging for her head when a brick wall collided with her, sending her flying into the shallows. She spluttered as seawater splashed her face, and when she opened her eyes to stare up at the thing that had hit her she saw James Norrington, standing just where she had been moments before, taking the brunt of the fish-man's blow with his sword.

He pushed his opponent back, slashing, steel meeting steel again in a flurry of strikes. The fish-man snarled in rage at his ineffectiveness and hacked at James's head, but the ex-commodore ducked, the blade sailing harmlessly over him while the inertia carried the fish-man's arm around to expose his right side. James took advantage of the opening, bringing his weapon to bear on his opponent, and a cry of agony pierced the air as flesh and bone were cleaved in two.

Elizabeth gaped at the severed limb that fell into the water, inhuman screams of pain reverberating above her, before she regained enough of her wits to pounce forward and pry the sword from the stiffened, lifeless fingers. When it came loose she stumbled to her feet, automatically backing against James as a trio of Jones's crew rushed forward to the aid of their wounded comrade.

She aimed at one of them while James handled the other two, and she was amazed at just how quick he was with a blade. She had witnessed him dispatch the drunkards in the Tortuga tavern last night, and she could remember watching him duel for sport in Port Royal, but neither instance had been anything at all like this. This was a fight to the death, and he was going after their collective enemy with a reckless abandon and a fury the likes of which she had never before seen in him.

It suddenly occurred to her that he was a genuinely dangerous man.

He cursed behind her as she whipped her sword in a circle and the fish-man's weapon went flying, and she turned around in time to meet another blade. From the corner of her eye she could see that he was sporting a nasty cut above his brow, blinking away blood, and she nudged him with her shoulder. He took the hint, the two of them whirling around and allowing her to beat back the pair of crewmen while he slashed at the one she had disarmed. Another horrific scream rang out and she could only assume that he had maimed again.

Suddenly another of Jones's men sprang in her periphery but then was knocked aside, and her jaw dropped.

"Will!" she cried out in relief, and she would have thrown her arms around him then and there if it wouldn't have gotten them both killed.

"To the boat!" he shouted as he kicked away the downed crewman's weapon before engaging another.

She spun in the direction of the longboat, seeing that Pintel and Ragetti had managed to break away from the fight and were already sprinting towards it, and she had just started after them when a searing pain erupted in her thigh. With a scream she collapsed in the shallows, looking down to see red frothing away in the water, gasping as salt burned the wound. Tears stung her eyes, her vision blurring, and she was trying to crawl blindly forward when someone jerked her to her feet.

She expected to see Will, but when she blinked she realized that it was James and she grabbed hold of his shoulder, his grip around her waist like iron as he half-dragged her away from the battle. Behind them came the ringing of metal on metal as Will held back the remainder of Jones's crew.

* * *

Will glanced over his shoulder to see Norrington practically toss Elizabeth into the longboat before helping Pintel and Ragetti to shove off, while Jack brandished an oar against one of the fish-men. Will turned back around to cross blades with the enemy again, this time beating back two of them, kicking one into the shallows and disarming the other. There was enough of an opening for him to turn and run, and he whirled around to sprint towards the boat.

He could hear the cries of the cursed crew behind him as he went and when he skidded to a halt beside the small vessel his eyes immediately locked onto the chest, sitting open and empty, and he forgot how to breathe.

When time decided to start again, his head snapped up and he glared at Sparrow.

"_Jack!_" he bellowed, and the pirate slammed the oar into the fish-man's head before swinging around, frowning.

"The heart!" demanded Will.

"Like I'd be tellin' you, mate," shouted back Sparrow, smirking before landing a kick into his stunned opponent's chest.

"It's in the jar of dirt!"

It was Elizabeth, who was curled in the hull with a hand pressed to the nasty gash in her leg, and for the first time he noticed the mound of spilled earth on the bench beside the chest. His gaze landed the large glass jar and he reached for it, but before he could act he heard Norrington furiously swearing behind him. Elizabeth squealed, and when he turned around he was very nearly decapitated by a swinging cutlass, but he dipped down and thrust his own sword forward and into the midriff of his attacker. He twisted the blade, eliciting a cry of pain, and when he pulled it out a foul mixture of brown acid and undigested chunks spilled from the crewman's gut.

He kicked the fish-man back, watching as Norrington fought off another, and as much as he disliked the ex-commodore he couldn't help but be thankful that he was here. Elizabeth would probably be dead if it weren't for him.

Still, the immortal crew of Davy Jones continued to press in around them, and he had nearly given up hope of escaping when a thought struck him. He turned back around, grabbing hold of the empty chest and snapping the lid shut, and when he wheeled back around he smashed it into the head of an oncoming adversary. It got the attention of the others, and once he was sure they had all seen what he was holding, he pulled back with every ounce of his strength and threw the chest into the air.

Their battlecries suddenly quieted as they froze to watch it sail slowly across the sky before it splashed down yards away, sending up a plume of white water.

It all happened in no more than a few seconds, but it was just long enough for Jack to jump in the longboat and toss the missing oar to Pintel and Ragetti, who began rowing like men possessed. Norrington vaulted over the edge of the vessel, landing with a thud beside Elizabeth while Will followed suit, and when half of Jones's crew ran shouting towards the chest a contingent broke off to pursue their enemy, but it was too late.

Will looked behind and watched Isla Cruces shrink into the distance.

When he turned back around, he found to his chagrin that the former commodore was sitting in the hull next to Elizabeth, tending to her wound. He had torn off the fabric of her trousers below the gash and was using it as binding, and she winced as he tied off the ends of the bandage as tightly as he could manage. Will felt a stab of jealousy. There was no doubt that he was grateful to the man for saving his fiancé's life, but at the same time he couldn't help but feel that he should have been the one to carry her to the boat, that he should be the one caring for her now, and not James Norrington.

She looked up and met his eyes, her face breaking into a grin.

"Will," she started, reaching up to take his hand, and he squeezed her palm in his, "Thank God you're alright."

"I'm not the one to be worried about," he replied gently as he shifted to move closer to her, and beside him he sensed Norrington draw away.

"I'm perfectly fine," she insisted, "James has informed me that I will survive."

"It needs stitching," interjected the ex-commodore from somewhere to the right. He sounded just as dull as Will remembered.

Will turned towards him, hesitating for a moment.

"You have my thanks," he finally said, "I owe you a debt."

Norrington suddenly glared back, his eyes smoldering. "I did this for her sake and not for yours, Turner," he shot back quietly, and Will was taken aback by the magnitude of venom in his voice. In the eight years he had known the man, he wasn't sure he had ever seen him express such a quantity of emotion in that entire time combined, let alone in one sentence.

"James," started Elizabeth softly, something pleading in the way she regarded him, and Will was certain that she had never looked at the former commodore that way before. But it worked, for like a faithful watchdog heeding a command, Norrington stood down, withdrawing further from the two of them and sitting resignedly against the other side of the hull.

For the first time since his arrival on Isla Cruces, Will wondered what had happened to James Norrington in the past year, and he also wondered what had happened between James Norrington and Elizabeth Swann in the past week.

Before he could draw conclusions that he didn't like, he tried to push that trail of thought from his mind, instead looking at the woman sitting next to him and imagining their life together after this entire misadventure was over.

He was still thinking of the wedding when the longboat bumped into the side of the _Pearl_ and Jack scrambled out, jar of dirt securely in hand.

* * *

James followed Turner and Elizabeth out of the boat and up the ladder, and when they reached the deck they were greeted by an astonished Gibbs. He gaped at Elizabeth, who was leaning on the blacksmith's shoulder.

"Lord," he breathed, "What the devil happened?"

Jack stepped forward. "I'm afraid we had a slight and somewhat unfortunate encounter with the crew of the _Flying Dutchman_."

"Slight my eye!" exclaimed Pintel gruffly from somewhere close by, "Bloody well nearly killed us!"

"Nearly killed us," echoed Ragetti.

Gibbs ignored them. "And what of the chest?" he asked, squinting at the captain.

"The contents are safely secured!" explained Sparrow, smirking crookedly and clicking bejeweled fingers against the glass jar in his arms.

"And Elizabeth?" demanded Turner suddenly, making no attempt to hide his frustration, and both Jack and the first mate jerked towards him.

"I suppose it's safe to assume there's not a surgeon amongst your crew," remarked James, already knowing that he was right. He had captured enough pirate vessels to find that they rarely had a physician aboard, much less a willing one, and medical supplies, though prized, were often scarce.

"Mister Gibbs!" began Jack, his lip twitching as he looked at Elizabeth, who was still clinging to Turner and favoring her injured leg, "Have we any provisions of a medicinal nature left in our stores?"

"Aye, that we do," replied the first mate.

"Then by all means accommodate Miss Swann and the whelp."

Gibbs disappeared below deck and James followed Turner as he helped his fiancé towards the small cabin situated beside Jack's, where he assumed Elizabeth had been staying during her time aboard the _Pearl_. When the three of them had crowded into the room, Turner eased her down into the lone rickety chair and then knelt beside her while James folded his arms, leaned against the wall, and very much wished that the blacksmith was back aboard the _Flying Dutchman_. He knew Turner's skills had been instrumental, even necessary, in their escape from Isla Cruces, and he was grateful for that, but now he wouldn't have complained had the boy simply up and vanished.

Sparrow had, after all, been at least partly right. It was Turner who had freed the criminal to begin with, James knew, and Jack's words from the midst of the duel came flooding back.

_So whose fault is it, really, that you've ended up a rum-pot deckhand what takes orders from pirates?_

His lip curled as he watched the blacksmith hold Elizabeth's hand and he felt his ire start to rise again. He had nearly let it overflow in the longboat, but she had warned him off, and like the good soldier he had once been he had bottled his hostility. But now he could feel that bottle beginning to crack.

When Gibbs burst into the cabin and set the small medicine chest on a crate beside Elizabeth, the timing couldn't have been better. James pushed himself away from the wall and slipped his baldric over his head, propping it and the cutlass against the crate, before shrugging off his ragged coat.

"I'll tend to her," explained the blacksmith, getting to his feet and turning to face the ex-commodore.

"No, Mister Turner," droned James, sighing resignedly as he rolled up his sleeves, "As I recall, you have no experience whatsoever in this particular area."

"And you do?"

He stared back in exasperation. "Do you honestly believe I served my entire life in the King's Navy and never learned to patch a wound?" he asked, pushing past the boy to rummage in the chest. A moment later he withdrew a needle and thread and stepped towards Elizabeth, reaching down to move a small crate next to her before sitting down.

Turner again knelt by her side.

Elizabeth bit her lip as James carefully undid his hasty bandaging to reveal the gash beneath, dried blood sticking the cloth to the skin, and he tried his best to be gentle. It was a deep cut, but the bleeding had stopped. If there was no infection, the worst she would be left with was a nasty scar.

He looked to Gibbs, who had been standing quietly out of the way, and thrust his hand towards the man. "Your flask," he ordered, beckoning impatiently.

Gibbs stared back in confusion for a moment before complying, reaching inside his vest and producing the flask. James snatched it from him, uncapping it, taking a swig, and gritting his teeth against the taste before soaking the needle. He glanced at Elizabeth, who was absently watching Will with a faint smile, and then, without warning, dumped the remainder of the alcohol on the wound.

She shrieked and shot up from where she was sitting, suddenly seizing his wrist. Her fingernails dug into his skin and he winced, but he calmly met her glare, pulling his hand away, as her fiancé eased her back into the chair.

"Keep her still, Turner," he muttered, threading the needle before leaning forward and going to work. Her muscles went taught and he heard her draw a sharp breath, but she didn't cry out again.

He poured all of his focus into closing the wound. Now that the adrenaline of battle had faded, his care for Elizabeth was the only thing preventing him from dwelling on what he had sacrificed to save her. His only bargaining chip was now happily beating away inside a jar of dirt, and the jar of dirt was never going to leave Jack Sparrow's sight. He had missed his window of opportunity, and he hadn't the slightest idea if another would ever open.

As it stood, his hopes of a new life had been dashed, and any other plans to hand over the heart to Beckett were on hold indefinitely.

While he worked he listened to the lovers talk, barely following the conversation as he carefully stitched shut the gash. The blacksmith did most of the speaking, explaining to Elizabeth that his father had been cursed to serve aboard the _Dutchman_.

James's jaw clenched. Somehow the thought of another William Turner frustrated him.

"So now you see why I needed the heart. I made a promise to him that I have to uphold."

There was a pause, and James assumed that she nodded.

"Elizabeth, I must go speak with Jack," insisted Turner, "I have to convince him to demand that Jones free my father."

"Of course," replied Elizabeth weakly, but there was understanding in her voice. James glanced up long enough to watch as the blacksmith pressed his lips to her hand and then stood.

"I'll return as soon as I've ensured his release," he added, smiling affectionately at her before turning and leaving the cabin, shutting the door behind him.

The only sound now was that of the waves beating against the side of the ship, but James could feel her eyes on him. He finished the last stitch and had tied it off, cutting through the thread with a knife from his belt, when his concentration finally broke. He sat back, his shoulders sagging, and he realized with a grimace that his muscles were stiff and aching. Months of commanding a vessel followed by days lying in a military infirmary and then weeks deteriorating in Tortuga had made him softer than he would have liked, and it occurred to him that the last time he'd truly fought was during the battle of the Isla de Muerta, one long year ago.

That had been for the sake of Elizabeth Swann as well.

"Don't hate him, James."

Her voice broke through his thoughts and he lifted his head to find her silently pleading with him, and he wondered if he wore his emotions that plainly.

"He's just as much to blame as Sparrow," he muttered, reaching across her to replace the needle and thread in one of the drawers of the medicine chest before leaning his elbows on his knees and staring at the floor. If she had any argument to make for Turner, she thought better of it, and there was a long silence.

"You can still come with us when we return to Port Royal," she said after a while, "Now that we have the heart, Beckett will be forced to listen to our demands."

She waited for a response, but he said nothing.

"Thank you," she finally added quietly, smiling at him and glancing at the neatly stitched wound. She reached forward and took his hand.

He knew that to her it was nothing more than a gesture between old friends, but still he felt the familiar ache begin within him and he desperately wanted to pull her into his arms.

"You're still a fine man, James," she told him softly, and then smirked, "Though it may no longer be immediately apparent."

It seemed to him that had she possessed a list of the things he had done she might have thought differently, but it still meant the world.

Suddenly a deafening roar sounded, followed by the rush of spraying water, and he jumped to his feet. He and Elizabeth exchanged glances, both realizing exactly what was happening, and he pulled his dagger from his belt and handed it to her.

"If we're boarded, bar the door," he ordered, their eyes meeting, and he silently prayed that it didn't come to that. Then he turned, grabbing the baldric from its spot beside the crate and slinging it over his stained and frayed shirt, before he left Elizabeth alone.

And as he shut the door behind him, he knew that for the first and possibly last time, he was going to come face to face with Davy Jones.


	11. Gambit

**Author's Note:**

**First of all, apologies for the lengthy delay in updating. College has been very busy, as my group is in the throes of trying to take a product we've designed to market. I don't foresee things becoming any less busy, so there will probably be more long delays between chapters. Also, as I was writing this, I realized I needed to alter some future plans, so I didn't want to update until I was sure I had a clear plan of how things are going to go.**

**Again, I would like to thank everybody who has read and reviewed! Continue to enjoy the story!**

* * *

When he strode onto the deck with one hand on the hilt of his cutlass, he hadn't really known what he would find, but it wasn't what he saw.

What he saw was somehow much worse.

He had come much closer than he would have liked to Jones's crew on Isla Cruces, but he realized that in the heat of battle he hadn't fully appreciated their ghoulishness. Now, as they walked the deck of the _Dutchman_ and clung to her crusted rigging, jeering and cursing like maniacs, they appeared as a singular teeming mass, a terrible amalgamation of man and ship and sea, and it was as though every maritime horror from pagan antiquity had suddenly sprung to life with the sole intent of terrorizing the _Pearl_. Or perhaps this was simply what Hell looked like in the eyes of a sailor, a perversion of everything held dear in life now deemed the instruments of torment for eternity, and for an instant James wondered if his opportunity for redemption had passed and the devil had come to collect his dues.

Jones pushed through his crew to stop at the railing, his tentacled beard writhing like a gorgon's head as he furiously glared. James followed his line of sight to the helm of the _Pearl_, where Jack Sparrow was standing with his jar of dirt securely cradled in one arm, while beside him were Turner and Gibbs, who crossed himself. Sparrow said something to the blacksmith before suddenly thrusting the jar into the air with both hands and swaying.

"Oi! Fish-face! Lose something?" he shouted, prancing along the deck while Jones looked genuinely affronted, "Come to negotiate, ay, have you, you slimy git? Look what I got!" He shook the jar flamboyantly, "I got a jar of dir-irt, I got a jar of dir-irt, and guess what's in-side it!"

Jones's eyes narrowed. "Enough!" he snarled impatiently, and as he turned away the massive mouths of Poseidon on the side of the ship groaned open to spill seawater, revealing the _Dutchman_'s guns.

For no logical reason he could think of, James wondered how the cannons still fired after being flooded.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, mate," replied Jack, smirking, jar of dirt still held high, and the other captain whirled back around.

"You had your chance to settle your debt, Jack Sparruh!" said Jones, baring his teeth, "Now I'll be takin' the _Pearl_ back to the depths-uh, as per our agreement!"

"Then you forfeit your own life!" It was Turner, who stepped forward after having felt it necessary to insert himself into the situation. Jones stared at him as if he had gone mad.

Jack took over the conversation again. "I take it then that you have yet to examine the contents of said chest what your fine and illustrious crew brought ye, ay?" he asked as he lowered the jar and wrapped one arm around it.

There was a tense silence as the two captains stood off. Finally, Jones growled in frustration.

"The key," he bit out slowly, and James remembered that the blacksmith had kept enough of his wits to lock the chest before sending it sailing into the sky.

The pirate grinned and slipped his free hand inside his shirt, pulling out the key that he had taken earlier from Turner. And then James blinked and suddenly Jones was no longer on the _Dutchman_ but was on the _Pearl_ instead, face to face with Jack Sparrow, who stumbled backwards into air. There was a collective groan from the crew and the crack of shattering glass as Sparrow and jar bounced down the steps and hit the quarterdeck. Dirt went flying, but in an instant Jack was back on his feet with the still-beating heart of Davy Jones clutched in both hands.

"Got it!" he exclaimed proudly, but his confidence was replaced by a grimace when the heart's enraged owner materialized before him. The pair of them were now only feet away from where James had rooted himself and he stared at the _Dutchman_'s commander in horrified fascination, trying to reconcile the thing before him with the superstitious sailor's tales he had grown up with.

Jones looked vaguely triumphant as he leaned over Jack. "Now tell me, Captain Sparruh," he spat, his tentacles curling in relish, "What's stoppin' me from takin' back what is mine-uh and sendin' you and your beloved _Pearl_ to the Locker?" His clawed hand crept forward, and James waited for Sparrow's retort. When two seconds crawled by in the space of an eternity, it was more than enough time to convince him that neither Jack nor anyone else aboard had a plan of action.

He didn't remember making the decision. He simply knew that his body stepped forward of its own accord, and he was a passenger behind his own eyes as he numbly crossed the gap between himself and the two captains. And then in one fluid movement he reached across Sparrow, took hold of the man's flintlock and pulled it straight from his belt, and leveled the barrel at the beating lump of flesh in Jack's hands.

"As Turner said, you forfeit your life," he hissed coolly, his voice low and dangerous, and he met Jones's withering glare with steely resolve. Somewhere along the way he had done as he always did before battle, neatly packaging his emotions and tucking them away to be unboxed again when they were useful, but even that was not enough to prevent him from nearly being overwhelmed by the sensation of hopelessness induced by looking into Jones's eyes. It was the same as finding that there was no escaping the inevitable; as experiencing the all-consuming realization of impending death; as gazing at an infinite abyss and knowing that you would be pulled into it, no matter your deeds. But the thing that truly terrified him was that he had felt all of these things before, a lifetime ago when he was curled in the hull of a longboat tossed amidst the massive swells of a Mediterranean gale.

A wave of nausea hit him and he was filled with the urge to get as far away from Davy Jones as he could possibly manage, but instead he held his ground, his stoical facade intact and his hand steady as he gripped the pistol.

It was deathly quiet on the deck of the _Pearl_ as the two men faced each other. Even Sparrow had frozen in his place, frowning at the pair, and James thanked the heavens that the pirate knew when to hold his tongue.

Jones's eyes narrowed before he suddenly bared his teeth in a mirthless grin and broke into laughter.

"Well, if it isn't _Commodore_ James Norrington-uh!" he sneered, chuckling.

James's mind went reeling as he felt the wind leave his lungs, and he had to remember how to breathe. He didn't even notice when one of the captain's writhing tentacles prodded him in the shoulder.

"I thought you were still alive-uh, since the sea never claimed ye," Jones added slyly, his eyes shining gleefully at the discovery.

James stared back, desperately wanting to keep the captain from saying another word, but he was at a loss. Jones grew serious again.

"I suppose I should commend ye, for the bravery of your crew," he continued as he tilted his head to carefully regard the man who had taken him hostage, "Not a one a'them begged for mercy when I put an end to their suffering."

It was then that James realized why Jones's presence seemed so very familiar, and the floor of his world fell out from beneath his feet. Sickeningly vivid memories churned to the surface, his vision flooded with images of bodies slipping beneath angry water, and he heard the dying screams that he had spent the past months in Tortuga trying to forget.

It occurred to him that he was not the only party responsible for the deaths of his men, and that had the thing standing across from him now not slaughtered them, more might have lived.

Something inside him exploded and he was filled with the urge to hurl himself at the captain and beat the man to a pulp, but the coldly rational side of him knew that it would do him no good. So he quickly bottled the onslaught of emotion with a skill honed by years of serving in a Navy that needed neither his temper nor his rage, save in battle, and all that showed on his face was a deepening scowl as he pushed the barrel of the pistol against the heart.

Jones smirked. "Tell me, Commodore," he mocked, "If ye kill me, are ye prepared for what comes after?"

James said nothing.

"If you destroy my heart, then _yours_ must take its place."

He knew that it was meant to shock him, to terrify him into backing down, but somehow it had no such effect, because now he was driven forward by his hatred and the exhilaration of pushing an enemy to the breaking point, the rush of taking calculated risks and putting forth gambits. They were the same motivations that had made him feared throughout the Caribbean as the Scourge of Piracy, though his subordinates had seen nothing but a calm and collected man, and he knew that he had not built a reputation by turning away from conflicts that he was capable of winning. And this was one conflict he simply had to win, because as far as he could see, his bluff was the only thing keeping Jones from sending them all to the hereafter. He wasn't sure that he would have cared quite as much had Elizabeth not been involved, but she was, and it required very little creativity to imagine what would become of her, the only woman aboard, should Jones and his crew take the _Pearl_.

But even had the stakes not been so high, the selfish thing in him was not about to surrender his one remaining bargaining chip. And though he could not yet claim the heart for himself, he could at least choose to whom it would go, and the lesser of two evils was for it to remain in the hands of Jack Sparrow.

He kept the pistol steady, but Jones went on.

"The crew is not bound to _me_," he explained, leaning closer to James, "They're bound to the _Dutchman_. And the _Dutchman_ _must _have a captain!" He said it as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, and he almost grinned again, squinting, "So, _Commodore_. Will ye give up everything ye hold dear and serve-uh?"

James glared, and his knuckles whitened around the grip of the firearm in his hand. "If you truly know me, then you also know that I have nothing left to give," he shot back quietly, and Jones's eyes popped open at the display of defiance.

"Ye may say that now-uh," he hissed, jerking his head to one side like a reptile, "But are ye willing to carve open your own flesh and cut your still-beating heart from your chest-uh? To exile yourself from the land of the living? Can ye do that?" He stared at the former commodore and something vicious crept across his tentacled features. "Or do you, James Norrington, fear death-uh?" he finally asked, savoring the words as he showed his teeth again in malicious amusement.

It was a question to which James immediately knew the answer, and the hatred in his scowl intensified.

"I died seven months ago with my crew," he replied bitterly, the fire in his eyes meeting the ice of Jones's demeanor, and he pulled the hammer back.

There was a long silence, and he could see that the captain was gauging his resolve, wondering how far he was willing to go, and for the first time since he had initiated this gambit he genuinely wondered the same thing. His intention had never been to destroy the heart, only to press Jones into meeting their demands; but if Jones refused, pressed back, forced his hand, could he carry through with his threats or would he take his chances and allow Jones to unleash the wrath of the _Dutchman_? He had already survived the sinking of one ship, but even if his luck held out a second time, there would be nothing waiting for him. By now every legitimate port throughout the Caribbean held a warrant for his arrest, and with no chip to trade he could only hope to find his way back to Tortuga and drink away his remaining years. Or maybe Jones would simply finish the job begun seven months ago and he would perish along with everyone else aboard.

Including Elizabeth Swann.

Once again she was at the center of his decision-making paradigm, and he doubted that there would ever come a time when that was not the case. Because he was coming to realize that no matter what he told himself, no matter how many times he determined to let her go, he would never be free of her. He would always love her to the point of fault, and the thought of losing her would never become any more bearable. Of course, he had to remind himself that she was not, nor had she ever been, his to lose.

He truly had nothing left to give.

Now, he could only afford to think in terms of what he could gain. With Jones dead, the _Pearl_, and Elizabeth, would be safe. He would captain a ship again, command a crew, emerge as the unchallenged power of the seas. It was a position not terribly different from the one he had held in his previous life, and to him it seemed a cruel irony that taking Jones's place would bring him closer to that life than he had been in months. But it came at the price of this world, dooming him to exist as neither the living nor the dead, an eternal reaper of souls, and he wondered if perhaps that was a fate he deserved. Maybe acting as ferryman to the afterlife was a fitting end for a man whose hands were stained with the blood of so many.

But even as he weighed the outcomes in his mind, the rational part of him, the tactician, knew that this was one decision he would not have to make. Jones had gone through far too much trouble in concealing the heart and guaranteeing its safety to chance it being obliterated by a madman with a pistol.

The simple fact was that Davy Jones feared death.

When the captain broke off his glare in a frustrated growl, James knew that he had won, but he showed no sign of satisfaction. His calm facade, etched with loathing, remained intact. Instead he watched as Jones straightened, tentacles writhing angrily, before leveling his gaze at Jack Sparrow, who had continued to remain silently frozen in place with the heart clutched in his hands. Jones regarded him derisively before narrowing his eyes.

"Very well-uh," he snarled, and he leaned towards Jack, "Make your demands-uh."


End file.
